At the beginning of 2025, the global 5G-A commercialization process has shown an accelerating trend, injecting new vitality into the development of the digital economy.
In Asia, as a leader in 5G development, China has made remarkable progress in the 5G-A commercialization process. In 2024, China completed the "14th Five-Year Plan" 5G construction and development goals ahead of schedule. The first technical standard R18 for 5G-A was officially frozen in that year, which was regarded as the first year of 5G-A commercialization. By the end of November 2024, nearly 330 cities in China had already initiated the deployment of 5G-A networks, and operators in more than 100 cities across the country had released 5G-A packages. Zhang Yunming, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that China's 5G development has entered the "second half" of application deepening and technological upgrading. The country will continue to promote network upgrades and industrial upgrades, accelerate the further extension of 5G to remote areas, and orderly advance the upgrade from 5G to 5G-A.
The Middle East has emerged as a leader in the global 5G-A commercial deployment. At the Telecom Review Leaders Summit in 2024, the du operator in the United Arab Emirates established an innovation center and achieved important breakthroughs in areas such as fixed wireless access, immersive extended reality, and B2B applications, and successfully improved the uplink performance by 70%. Meanwhile, Ooredoo in Oman successfully completed 5G-A tests and set a new record for the highest network speed in Oman. Ooredoo in Qatar promoted the upgrade of its core network to the next-generation service-oriented architecture. Ooredoo in Kuwait completed 5G-A millimeter-wave technology tests. Vodafone in Qatar achieved a peak rate of over 10Gbps.
European countries are also actively laying out the 5G-A commercialization. Operators in some countries have already started pilot projects and small-scale commercialization of 5G-A networks, mainly focusing on improving network capacity, reducing latency, and supporting more connections of Internet of Things devices to meet the needs of high-speed and stable networks in areas such as the Industrial Internet and intelligent transportation. For example, a major operator in Germany has deployed 5G-A networks in the industrial areas of some cities, providing more efficient production automation solutions for local manufacturing enterprises and enabling real-time and precise control between devices as well as high-speed data transmission.
Some operators in the United States are also accelerating the pace of 5G-A commercialization. They are actively cooperating with equipment suppliers to carry out technical tests and network optimization work, with a focus on how to use 5G-A technology to improve the coverage and signal quality of networks, especially in high-density populated areas and remote areas. Meanwhile, American tech giants are also actively exploring the application potential of 5G-A in fields such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and smart cities, and jointly promoting the construction of the 5G-A ecosystem with operators.
Major global equipment manufacturers are also actively facilitating the 5G-A commercialization process. Companies like Huawei, Ericsson, and Nokia have increased their investment in 5G-A technology research and development and equipment production, continuously launching 5G-A base station equipment and terminal chips with better performance and lower power consumption, providing strong technical support for global operators. For example, Huawei's new generation of 5G-A base station equipment adopts advanced antenna technology and signal processing algorithms, which can effectively improve network capacity and coverage while reducing the energy consumption and operating costs of the equipment.
With the acceleration of the global 5G-A commercialization process, the key technologies and commercial scenarios of 5G-A are gradually maturing, which will provide powerful technical support for fields such as intelligent transportation, telemedicine, virtual reality, augmented reality, and the Industrial Internet, creating new scenarios and new business forms. In the future, with the joint efforts of all parties around the world, 5G-A technology is expected to make greater contributions to the digital transformation and sustainable development of human society.
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