4G licenses should not be issued urgently, not to worry

The Internet is uploading 517 to issue 4G licenses again. In fact, looking at the attitude and environment of the three major operators, we can conclude that 4G licenses are not urgent or urgent.

First, check China Telecom and China Unicom. Although 3G licenses have been issued for more than four years, due to the cycle of network construction, terminal customization, application popularization, and brand promotion, it was not until the second half of last year that it was "getting better ", to achieve the development of 3G users, 2G users began to migrate to 3G in batches. At this time, a large amount of 3G network investment is far from being withdrawn. Even the 3G networks of the two companies started to make profits only in the second half of last year. In particular, China Unicom (Weibo), which currently provides HSPA + technology in dozens of cities, can achieve 21 M, and may also be upgraded to 84 M, compared with 3G, the gap is not big. In addition, the two major operators still need to extract part of the limited funds to support the broadband China strategy. Currently, China Telecom and China Unicom are not motivated to apply for a 4G license.

China Mobile (Weibo) faces different environments. With ample cash at hand, 2G era in a significant leading position, but it is this reason, China Mobile "selected" the maturity of the independent intellectual property rights 3G International Standard TD-SCDMA, although a large amount of support has been given to networks, terminals, and applications, there are still significant competitive disadvantages, especially the small number of mid-and high-end terminals and poor international network roaming, this severely restricts the development of China Mobile. Therefore, China Mobile hopes to change this unfavorable situation by building TD-LTE.

However, this does not mean that a license must be issued immediately. As China Mobile's technology for obtaining a 4G license has been determined, China Mobile has made clear policies in its frequency band planning and other environments, which allows China Mobile to build a 4G network with confidence and start commercial promotions. Currently, China Mobile has begun trial commercial use in Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, the trial commercial network construction in dozens of cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Qingdao, is also underway. A new round of bidding for 4G base stations is coming soon. China Mobile plans to have about 0.2 million base stations, covering 344 cities across the country, including the first 100 economically developed cities. However, if you only determine the time as trial commercial use, it is still possible not to issue a license. Prior to commercial trial in Hangzhou and Wenzhou, no licenses were issued.

Compared with the issuance of 4G licenses, to actively promote the construction of the TD-LTE industry chain and international cooperation, more attention should be paid by all parties. Whether a standard is competitive depends on whether it is accepted by chip, terminal, testing equipment, antenna, and other industrial chain manufacturers in the early stages of development, and the degree to which it is accepted by international operators. Looking back at the development process of TD-SCDMA, in the early stage of becoming a 3G standard, first delayed the unclear policy, and then adopted three to balance (China Mobile, China Telecom (microblogging) and the original China Netcom) the practice of building a lab network seems to have gathered as much power as possible. As a result, all the companies are completing "political tasks" without initiative, and equipment vendors are still competing with the State-owned, private, and foreign investment, as you can see, the industry chain has become "isolated", and its support is obviously weaker than that of WCDMA and CDMA 2000 1X EVDO, especially WCDMA, carriers and equipment vendors are already actively evolving towards HSPA +, which is 21 M, 42 M, and 84M at a speed close to 4G.

In contrast, the starting point of TD-LTE is much earlier, to promote more actively, this and the early clear China Mobile is a carrier, stimulate the enthusiasm of enterprises. At present, the TD-LTE encountered problems, other 4G standards are also encountered. In addition, Softbank in Japan, Bharti Airtel in India and China Mobile Hong Kong have constructed and commercialized this standard. According to the latest statistics, as of the end of March 2013, the world has operated 15 TD-LTE commercial network, and more than 40 operators announced a clear TD-LTE commercial plan, the number of TD-LTE users has exceeded 2 million; the world has launched 166 terminal support TD-LTE, including 41 data cards, 86 CPE/Mobile Hotspot, 3 tablet computers, 18 modules and 18 smartphones.

TD-LTE license issuing is not urgent, but does not mean that China should not develop 4G, from the global situation, the current mainstream operators have started to switch from 3G to 4G, domestic operators should also actively follow this trend and launch attacks in a timely manner. Competent authorities should also actively prepare for frequency bands, standards, and detection, in particular, the high-quality low-frequency band tengkong work will lay a solid foundation for 4G commercial use in the future, reducing overall investment costs.