5G HAS FINALLY BECOME AVAIL ABLE. COMPARED TO 4G, 5G CAN DECREASE latency tenfold, increase throughput tenfold, and boost traffic capacity by 100 times. More important than 5G technology itself for telecom carriers and service providers, however, are the wealth of capabilities enabled by 5G.
China Telecom has been investing heavily in 5G networks and related R&D. At the end of 2020, the operator had access to 300,000 5G base stations, five times the number of live stations it had at the end of 2019. Some of these base stations are deployed by China Telecom, and others are part of a 5G network share with China Unicom. Plenty additional base stations are in
China Telecom’s 5G plans going forward. [1]
The telecom carrier has also made major shifts toward 5G within its CapEx mix. In 2020, 5G grew from an 11.9% share of CapEx to 53%. [1]
At the end of February 2020, China Telecom had over 10 million 5G subscribers [1], a pool that expanded to 86 million at the end of 2020.