35 Cities and Regions Jointly Ushering in the 5G-A Era

A report from chinadaily.com.cn on June 17th, 2024:

Several cities in China are exploring 5G-A network construction and application scenarios, unlocking vast opportunities for the technology’s development as well as for the digital economy, experts and business executives said.

5G-A, or 5G-Advanced (also known as 5.5G by some manufacturers), represents an enhancement over 5G. It offers significant improvements in capacity, speed, latency and positioning. For example, 5G-A is 10 times faster than 5G in terms of internet speed.

Earlier this month, 35 cities and regions jointly announced the start of the 5G-A era, actively promoting the evolution of 5G technology and application innovation.

“2024 is widely recognized as the first year of 5G-A commercialization with operators, industry chains, equipment and standards gradually maturing. There is immense potential for development in 5G-A business models, application scenarios and industry ecosystems. The development path for 5G-A is becoming increasingly clear,” said Wu Hequan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at a recent conference.

“5G development has reached a turning point. The application of 5G-A can meet the high bandwidth and low latency demands of extended reality and the internet of vehicles, which 5G cannot adequately support. 5G-A is crucial for enhancing and surpassing the current 5G network signal and is a necessary step toward upgrading to 6G,” Wu added.

Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at a recent event that further efforts are expected to strengthen China’s leading advantages in 5G-A and quantum communication technologies, and advance breakthroughs in strategic technologies such as 6G, artificial intelligence and the next-generation internet.

Wen Ku, chairman of the China Communications Standards Association, said 5G-A international standards focus on continually enhancing 5G network capabilities and expanding new use cases, initiating comprehensive integration with artificial intelligence.

“Comprehensive integration with AI has become a core direction for the evolution of future communication networks,” Wen said.

However, he also stressed that the smart development of mobile networks is a gradual process. The 5G-A is designed to lay a solid foundation for 6G to enable strong AI, promoting the transition from 5G “light intelligence” to achieving 6G “systematic intelligence”.

Huawei’s Senior Vice-President Cao Jibin predicted that in the next 5-10 years, the 5G-A network could cover needs in personal, household, office, production and travel scenarios, creating substantial economic value.