5G News Business In Progress: Three Operators Jointly Promote Industrial Ecological Exploration

On the way to explore 5g business model in the communication industry chain, 5g message has been regarded as a link worthy of breakthrough. In particular, since 2020, the three major domestic operators have jointly issued the "5g news white paper"; at the beginning of 2021, the centralized procurement of 5g message platform (RCS) conducted by China Unicom and China Telecom finally landed, and the soil for the ecological development of 5g news has become increasingly abundant.

During the recent mwc21 Shanghai (World Mobile Conference - Shanghai), ZTE also released 5g message public cloud solution, aiming to attract global operators to participate in the trial.

However, RCS itself has existed for nearly a decade. The 5g news mentioned at present is more based on the background of the new generation 5g network as the core network. The development of the superimposed industrial Internet is on the rise, which makes the industrial chain see a more mature driving point in logic.

        From a long-term perspective, based on the exploration of 5g message, the future operators may be expected to change the situation that their business model is impacted by Ott mode dominated by Internet companies (Internet companies surpass operators and develop various video and data services based on open Internet); the rise of industrial Internet will also make the business brought about by richer interaction modes in b-end industry Opportunities are expected.

Therefore, some people in the industry pointed out that in terms of 5g news, it is rare to see the three major domestic operators promote the precipitation of business in the way of joint cooperation.

Of course, objectively speaking, 5g news is still in the period of business development and mode exploration, leading to divergent opinions among industries. A number of MWC industry participants pointed out that in the process of promoting the implementation of 5g news, it is also important to straighten out the interest relations in the industrial chain as soon as possible, and need more terminals to support 5g messages.

How fast and how far 5g news can go, in essence, needs to explore a better way of collaboration between industrial chain ecology.

How fast and how far 5g news can go, in essence, needs to explore a better way of collaboration between industrial chain ecology. Visual China

5g message acceleration

At the end of 2020, a highly concerned news in 5g news field once caused some emotional fluctuations in the industry.

The RCS platform jointly constructed by China Unicom and China Telecom has been bidding for two consecutive times, and the pace of commercial application originally planned to start on January 1, 2021 has been delayed.

Fortunately, by the end of January 2021, the bidding was completed, with ZTE and Huawei sharing the shares respectively. It is regarded as "reassuring the industry" by some views.

There may be common reasons for the role and expectation of the industry. 5g message industry can be roughly divided into four roles: operator, IMS network provider, MAAP platform provider and terminal equipment provider. The bidding is for IMS network suppliers located downstream of operators.

Cui Kai, senior research manager of IDC in China, told 21st century economic report that relatively speaking, equipment manufacturers have the corresponding leading ability, because 5g news not only relies on software, but also needs hardware support to cooperate with existing equipment such as line network and core network.

At present, ZTE and Huawei are the only domestic leaders in this field. However, at least three manufacturers are required to participate in the bidding process in China. Therefore, the bidding process is finally completed by inviting bids.

"This year's bidding is still based on the overall architecture. When the architecture is mature, it will enter the software or hardware level, and then the number and degree of other suppliers will be greater." He further explained.

Some industry insiders told reporters that in fact, there will still be some other suitable small companies to participate, but in the context of the industry development model is not very clear, and did not actively participate in.

However, since then, the three operators can officially open the construction of 5g message platform, and the further exploration of this new thing is expected to accelerate.

Capital Securities pointed out that at present, China Mobile's construction speed is fast, and the network side functions basically meet the commercial conditions; China Telecom and China Unicom are relatively backward in progress, but with the help of suppliers, they will soon have commercial conditions.

      At the 5g message Summit Forum held during MWC, ZTE's senior vice president Wang Xiang concluded that the three operators, together with ZTE and other network equipment partners, actively promote the construction of 5g message platform. At present, the network has the conditions for large-scale commercial use; so far, the mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have released more than 60 terminals to support 5g messages; in terms of application ecology construction, China Telecom has launched more than 60 terminals to support 5g messages Xingtong supports the three major operators to carry out industry research, hold competitions and commercial pilot projects, and has incubated and covered more than 300 applications in nine major industries such as government and finance.

According to Cui Kai's analysis, although there was RCS in the early years, it was based on 3g-4g network before. Based on the traditional CT architecture, there are not many new application explorations among industries.

"In the 3G and 4G era, more services are provided for C-end users, and the content is mainly data traffic voice. Today, the communication industry has changed from 2C based business model in 2g-4g era to 2C + 2B mode in 5g era. In particular, in the context of the vigorous development of the industrial Internet, 5g news can be a support. " He pointed out.

What's more, 5g network is unique. Cui Kai said that because 5g is a cloud native architecture, it will bring higher flexibility. Therefore, hardware and software, traffic and control management can be separated and decoupled. "This allows more messages and services to be not tied to the original technical architecture and system, so that 5g messages have new development possibilities based on the current era and technical background."

Xie Yushan, director of consulting and research of trendforce Jibang, told reporters that in the past, the basic communication services provided by operators had problems such as single function, unable to upgrade and limited experience, which made it difficult to meet the growing communication needs of users. Therefore, there were business opportunities for RCS.

"At present, the development progress of the 5g messaging platform RCS continues to be gradual. As RCS interacts with users through 5g network, supplemented by cloud storage and computing, it is particularly important to create its own ecology. Recently, major Chinese smartphone manufacturers have indicated that the follow-up new mobile phones will support the 5g message platform, which will be conducive to the cooperation of all parties in the future 5g message ecological industrial chain. " She continued.

Industrial chain embraces actively

Indeed, from the perspective of further commercialization, in addition to the maturity and deployment of the infrastructure, the more important thing is the joint participation and promotion of downstream ecology. Therefore, during the above-mentioned forum, many participants actively appealed for this.

Yu Wei, director of the Institute of business of China Mobile Communications Group Corporation, pointed out that Japan, South Korea and the United States are the leading operators. The cooperation mode shows that the industry aims to promote unified technical standards, business brands and customer interfaces. "The coordinated development of operators has become a global consensus."

According to him, in December 2020, China Mobile has promoted the construction of 5g message network nodes in the whole country.

From the perspective of the terminal, supporting 5g message function is related to the reach rate of information, so it is repeatedly mentioned, but in fact, there is no technical problem. Therefore, the number of terminals supported this year will increase rapidly.

Operators are also playing a role in promoting it. Yu Wei continued, "we have released the user policy for equity version terminals. New home terminals are required to support 5g messages, while existing inbound terminals require a system upgrade package to support 5g messages. This year, terminal coverage will be further improved. "

According to his sharing, "after exploring, China Unicom believes that in the future, operators' research and development of 5g message SDK (Interface) and terminal manufacturers' commercial integration of SDK are an emerging cooperation mode we have created in terms of terminal native applications." Yu Wei analyzed that the 5g message SDK will further reduce the business implementation threshold of terminal manufacturers, which will effectively and quickly solve the problems of interconnection and inconsistent business experience. At the same time, it provides service guarantee for the continuous iterative upgrading of 5g message service.

Of course, in the early stage of new application development, there are still many problems that industry participants need to overcome through continuous communication and cooperation.

Yang Guang, senior analyst of strategy analytics, told 21st century economic reporter that some pessimistic views on the market are that even if 5g news is benchmarking, and the main customers are b-end users, the final C-end users will also be the core group to be reached.

From the perspective that 5g message is expected to break away from app and provide service directly by SMS in the future, how to set the tariff and how to infiltrate the C-terminal market after the C-end user sends 5g message to the b-end company will be a problem that cannot be ignored.

"At present, the difficulty lies in market confidence and terminal support. Operators need to make some investment exploration in the early stage. "

Cui Kai told reporters that from the perspective of age, 5g news is the most suitable for low digital groups such as the elderly and children.

In the future, 5g message operators may play a more open role, not just selling platforms or traffic. They may need more combination of business models, such as split mode, other technologies or business models, to promote the landing of 5g messages in the industry.

"In the early stage, operators need to be open-minded, do preliminary investment and technology construction, and introduce partners. It takes a process to help partners develop scenarios and business models. " He continued.

Cui Kai told reporters of the 21st century economic report that there will be some challenges in the early stage for operators. "Operators need to provide enough profit space; the demand side should be able to find more representative just in need users. Therefore, I think that in the first stage of 5g message development, operators will lead the pilot project and give SP some inspiration to find customers that can be copied in the industry. After the positive cycle, it is believed that operators and IMS equipment will retreat, and a richer business ecology will gradually emerge. "

Participants in the forum said that in the long run, 5g news will be an industrial ecology with a value of 10 billion or even 100 billion. "But we have just started, the platform has just completed the bidding, and the commercial construction is in progress. At present, the industry application is not rich, and the interest relationship in the industrial chain still needs to be further straightened out. These are the challenges now. Therefore, we suggest that 5g news needs to rely on the joint efforts of the whole industry chain. "