Deepening application scenarios: Shanghai Unicom's "5G-A network renewal" helps 5G "take off again"
As the wave of digitalization sweeps the world, the Internet has become a key force to connect the world and drive the future. In this era, Shanghai Unicom, as an industry leader, has woven an invisible intelligent network for the city with excellent services and forward-looking vision. Relying on its solid network technology foundation, Shanghai Unicom empowers thousands of industries, actively acts in key industries such as smart cities, smart manufacturing, smart cultural tourism, transportation and logistics, and contributes to the acceleration of the formation of new quality productivity.
Recently, Shanghai Unicom won many awards, including "Excellent Operator in the 2023 National Key Area Mobile Network Quality Special Assessment", which is a recognition of its unremitting pursuit of network quality over the years, and also encourages it to move towards the 5G-A era with a more innovative, pragmatic and responsible attitude. Today, Shanghai Unicom has introduced automatic optimization and advanced technologies to create "four leading" with "four upgrades", providing high-quality network services with stable signals, superior experience and leading technology for many industries and scenarios, and interpreting the grand blueprint of a network power and digital China with practical actions.
As a frontier city of the digital economy, Shanghai continues to lead in technological innovation, especially in the development of 5G technology, showing a remarkable pioneering attitude and leading the progress of the entire industry. Data shows that by 2023, Shanghai will have built 19,000 5G base stations, with a total of 92,000 built, and the density and proportion of 5G base stations ranked first in the country. In the five years of commercial use, Shanghai's communications industry has built a nationally leading 5G network covering the entire region, laying a solid foundation for Shanghai's urban digital transformation.
As a benchmark operator in Shanghai, Shanghai Unicom has always adhered to its original aspirations over the past five years, focusing on user needs and constantly pursuing excellent network coverage and quality. Shanghai Unicom has always adhered to the concept of 5G-A network first construction. In 2023, it took the lead in proposing the "5G-A Network Renewal" action, and successively completed the world's largest-scale TF multi-carrier aggregation network deployment in key areas such as Jing'an and Yangpu, successfully building a future-oriented 5G-A advanced network foundation.
Now, with the continuous deepening of the "Signal Upgrade" action plan, Shanghai Unicom has continued to deepen its efforts in the four aspects of "signal upgrade, perception upgrade, technology upgrade, and capability upgrade". In long-term practice and continuous exploration, it has achieved a shift from a network perspective to a business and perception perspective, and from network, scenario, and community granular management to a more precise user-level hierarchical management and control; in addition, Shanghai Unicom attaches great importance to smart operations and advanced technologies, relying on digital intelligence such as perception intelligent analysis and operation robot intelligent decision-making to ensure efficient linkage between network operations, perception optimization and market development; continue to explore "hard-core technology", self-create advanced wireless technologies such as intelligent beam optimization, and realize differentiated self-developed capabilities to adapt to industry needs.
Deepening application scenarios: helping 5G take off again
As of the first quarter of 2024, 5G applications have been integrated into 74 of the 97 major national economic categories, covering multiple industry fields such as industry, medical care, ocean, entertainment, transportation, agriculture, education, smart cities, etc., with the number of application cases exceeding 94,000, of which the number of "5G Industrial Internet" projects exceeds 10,000.
On the one hand, 5G has improved people's living standards, promoted the upgrading of interactive methods, and provided the ultimate experience of applications such as 3D video, VR/AR, and high-definition live broadcast, making people's lives smarter, more convenient, and better. More importantly, 5G has promoted the continuous in-depth development of digital-physical integration, reshaped the development model of traditional industries, and improved the intelligence and digitalization level of all links of R&D and production, effectively promoting the high-end, intelligent, and green development of the industry.
In the view of Shanghai Unicom, as an upgraded version of 5G technology, 5G-A not only has faster data transmission speeds and higher network capacity, but also through the combination with new technologies such as determinism, high-precision positioning, intelligence, perception, and computing power, 5G-A has penetrated into the production domain and expanded to new scenarios such as air, space, sea and land integration, Internet of Vehicles, and low-altitude economy, helping 5G technology to take off again.
At present, Shanghai Unicom has made a series of major breakthroughs in cutting-edge technologies such as 5G-A integrated vehicle networking, RedCap network capabilities, and 5GLAN, contributing "Shanghai wisdom" to the development of the global communications industry.
In the field of smart ocean, Shanghai Unicom, based on 5G-A's integrated three-dimensional communication of "air, space, land, sea and submarine", took the lead in completing 5G construction in the coastal areas and along the Yangtze River waterway, and simultaneously superimposed key technologies such as 5G-ATF3CC carrier aggregation, 2.1GFDDMassiveMIMO, and ultra-long coverage, opened the country's first 5G-A base station in the sea area, and completed 5G-A continuous coverage in key sea areas. According to the actual network measurement, the farthest coverage of the 5G-A base station in the sea area can reach 80km, and the average coverage is more than 30km, realizing "excellent coastal experience, stable offshore signals, and accessible in the distant sea", providing ubiquitous high-quality network experience for the smart ocean.
In the field of smart power, in order to ensure safe, stable and high-quality power supply to enterprises in the industrial park, Shanghai Unicom and State Grid Shanghai Electric Power replaced and upgraded the original 5G communication terminals with 5GRedCap terminals, realizing the 5GRedCap technology to carry out power load management for the first time, laying the foundation for the large-scale and high-quality application of 5G in the power industry. On the premise of meeting the business's low-latency and high-reliability communication requirements, the power consumption of 5G lightweight communication terminals has been reduced by 50% compared to before the replacement and upgrade. After upgrading and applying the 5GRedCap communication terminal, the success rate of power load data collection reached 100%, and the response time level was increased from minutes to milliseconds, helping to comprehensively improve the level of refined load management.
In the field of smart pipe networks, the construction of the drone patrol system for Shanghai's natural gas trunk pipeline network relies on China Unicom's 5G communication network and support facilities to build an integrated measurement and control network for unmanned aerial platforms. Through the "on-demand access, efficient and flexible, safe and reliable" 5G slice private network, a customized 5G communication terminal has been developed to achieve ultra-low latency, ultra-high reliability and high-security information transmission for drone patrol services, effectively solving the measurement and control of drone patrol services, video return and other problems. At the same time, it will also serve as a management innovation for traditional manual patrols in urban gas pipelines, explore a sustainable and popularizable normalized operation model, and ensure the safe and reliable transportation of natural gas in Shanghai.
In the field of industrial Internet, Shanghai Unicom has realized the world's first commercial use of 5GLAN technology in Schneider Electric's Shanghai Putuo Park. By carrying PLC industrial control functions through 5GLAN, "5G into the intranet" and "5G in the core production links" are realized. This is a milestone event for 5GLAN to move from technical standards to production practice. In recent years, Shanghai Unicom has adhered to the concept of integration and openness, integrated industrial chain resources, and created more than 120 5G industry virtual private networks and MEC projects, more than 500 5G commercial industry application projects, and continuously accumulated cloud-network integration application scenarios for industrial enterprises, created industrial standard products, and promoted 5G industrial Internet applications from "model rooms" to "commercial housing".
In fact, the needs of different business scenarios are different. In order to ensure high-efficiency, low-cost and green solutions, Shanghai Unicom conducts a comprehensive deconstruction based on industry and business needs, and implements three-dimensional networking and multi-form adaptation for different scenarios to help companies improve production efficiency, reduce operating costs and enhance market competitiveness.
Holding the key to innovation: promoting the development of new quality productivity
At present, my country is at the top of the wave of new quality productivity, taking high-quality development as a beacon to lead the transformation and upgrading of the economy. Communication technologies represented by 5G-A, combined with innovative elements such as artificial intelligence, computing power, and large models, have built a powerful "new quality network", which is not only an incubator for new quality productivity, but also an accelerator for the new industrialization process.
Shanghai is a global dual-10G city marked by 5G-A and 10G optical network, and has always been at the forefront of the country in the trial of advanced network technologies. At present, Shanghai has entered the "window period" for promoting the development of new industrialization. It is reported that Shanghai will introduce a new generation of communication industry chain support policy in the next step, supporting universities, research institutes, and leading enterprises to continue to increase R&D investment in interawareness integration, passive Internet of Things, and earth-ground integration, and strive to lead the development of the communication industry. Leading enterprises in the industry are encouraged to cooperate with research institutions, focus on cutting-edge technologies such as 5G-A, 5GNTN, and 5GRedCap, and take the lead in launching high-quality products that meet the needs of industry users in the country, provide enterprises with diagnosis, incubation, investment and other public services, and help Shanghai build a source of innovation for the digital industry.
The core of new quality productivity is innovation, which has been deeply reflected in the practice of Shanghai Unicom. At present, Shanghai Unicom has taken firm steps from "5G basic network construction" to "5G-A ultimate experience creation". As a benchmark application scenario of new quality productivity in the field of communications, 5G-A is of great significance for promoting the digital transformation and high-quality development of the industry. Shanghai Unicom has not only become a pioneer in 5G-A, but is also constantly building its own differentiated competitive advantages.
It is worth mentioning that Shanghai Unicom has not stopped there. By actively integrating industry chain resources and working together with partners from all parties, it has jointly promoted the development and application of 5G-A technology and better interpreted the concept of "open integration, cooperation and win-win". With the widespread application and continuous deepening of 5G-A technology, the efforts of Shanghai Unicom will drive the collaborative development of the entire industry and the leap of overall capabilities. It can be foreseen that under the leadership of Shanghai Unicom, new quality productivity will also be more fully released and developed.
