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  • China Mobile Hong Kong moves 5G innovation center

    China Mobile Hong Kong moves 5G innovation center

    China Mobile Hong Kong has relocated its 5G innovation center – known as the Hong Kong Open Lab – to Hong Kong Science Park.

    The relocation is aimed at accelerating the development of Hong Kong’s 5G ecosystem and catering to the needs of local business partners.

    China Mobile first founded its 5G innovation center in Kwai Chung in 2016, and opened the center in March last year.

    The new Hong Kong open lab will provide a larger space to allow the company to develop a 5G network environment and larger co-working space for local partners to trial 5G network applications and conuct 5G research and development.

    China Mobile will also use the relocated lab to continue its 5G+ Project aimed at complementing Hong Kong’s existing 4G networks with 5G infrastructure, and to promote the adoption of various applications for 5G technology.

    To mark the relocation, China Mobile Hong Kong showcased various 5G applications including an autonomous vehicle, an intelligent robot controlled over 5G in real time, drone technology, and live streaming of high-resolution photos and video.

    “We are very excited for the expansion and relocation of the China Mobile 5G Innovation Centre and Hong Kong Open Lab to the Hong Kong Science Park, and for the opportunity to join the local innovation and technology ecosystem in there to further develop 5G mobile service applications and carry out the 5G+ Project,” China Mobile Hong Kong director and CEO Sean Lee said.

    “We will continue to complement the existing 4G network with 5G infrastructure, to promote 5G technologies along with new communication technologies — for example, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud, Big Data and Edge Computing — to develop comprehensive 5G ecosystems in accomplishing the digitalization of lives for Hong Kong citizens and to enter the new era of 5G together.”

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  • ZTE, China Mobile, Ericsson conduct 5G-4G VoLTE call

    ZTE, China Mobile, Ericsson conduct 5G-4G VoLTE call

    ZTE, the Guangzhou branch of China Mobile and Ericsson have announced a joint demonstration of a VoLTE voice and video call between 5G and 4G smartphones.

    The successful call, completed at the end of March, utilized non-standalone 5G networks provided by different vendors, as well as China Mobile Guangzhou’s existing 4G network.

    It used ZTE’s 5G and 4G smartphones for the VoLTE voice and video call, as well as network equipment from the two vendors.

    Guangzhou is one of five 5G pilot cities for China Mobile, which is investing the most heavily in 5G among China’s big three mobile operators.

  • China Mobile, ZTE launch maritime broadband solution

    China Mobile, ZTE launch maritime broadband solution

    ZTE and the Zhejiang branch of China Mobile have jointly launched commercial trials of a new maritime broadband satellite solution.

    The solution, Heweitong, is designed to help solve common problems of maritime communication, such as poor coverage, slow data rate, and high cost.

    It will allow people at sea to communicate and access the internet by merely installing a mobile app on their smartphones.

    During the trial period, China Mobile and ZTE are offering the solution for free. Once commercially launched, the companies expect the cost to be 90% lower than traditional marine communications solutions.

    Heweitong has already undergone verification testing involving more than 50 ships and nearly 300 users in the Bohai Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

    The project forms part of China Mobile’s goal of offering ubiquitous connectivity via an integrated space, sky and land based communications solution.

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  • China Mobile Hong Kong holds 5G experience showcase

    China Mobile Hong Kong holds 5G experience showcase

    China Mobile Hong Kong (CMHK) and property company Sino Group have jointly held what they are calling Hong Kong’s first in-mall 5G experience showcase at the Olympian City 2 mall.

    The Future is Now 5G Experience Showcase, which was held over four days ending yesterday, comprised six experience zones intended to introduce ad demonstrate 5G technology.

    These zones were based around concepts including autonomous vehicles, smart glasses and a machine that purports to be unbeatable at janken (also known as rock paper scissors) by using 5G leased lines and a sensory system to detect gestures as they are thrown.

    Other zones highlight the speed improvement between 4G and 5G, the potential of 5G technology in smart city development and a start-up exhibition based on IoT technology.

    “Out of Hong Kong’s many mobile carriers, CMHK is the first network provider to receive the 5G trial permit, and has succeeded in engineering Hong Kong’s first end-to-end 5G network testing as well as the first Commercial Equipment Field-Testing of 28GHz 5G base stations,” CMHK chairman Dr Li Feng said.

    “In the future, CMHK will continue to adhere to the concept of ‘4G changes lives, 5G changes society’ by presenting “5G+ Project” in three agendas: firstly, to complement the existing 4G network with 5G infrastructure; to promote 5G with new networking technology; and develop more comprehensive 5G ecosystems to maximize the value of 5G.’

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  • China Mobile reports $17.6b profit for 2018

    China Mobile reports $17.6b profit for 2018

    China Mobile has reported a 3.1% increase in net profit for 2018 to 117.78 billion yuan ($17.58 billion) as the company focused on reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency.

    Operating revenue declined 0.5% in reported terms to 736.82 billion yuan, but grew 1.7% after 2017’s results were recalculated using the new IFRS revenue standard..

    Telecommunications service revenue fell a reported 0.4% but grew 3.7% in comparable terms to 670.9 billion yuan.

    The operator’s net profit was also aided by the listing of the company’s tower division China Tower in August last year.

    China Mobile reported a 4.3% increase in its total customer base for the year to 925 million, of which 713 million are 4G customers – a 9.7% increase from 2017. But mobile ARPU fell 8% to 53.1 yuan as a result of strong competition.

    Meanwhile total wireline broadband subscribers increased by 39% to 157 million, of which 147 million were household broadband customers. Household broadband blended ARPU grew 3.2% to 34.4 yuan.

    “2018 was a challenging year for telecommunications operators. Competition amongst peers changed in characteristics as products and services have become homogenized while cross-sector challenges have intensified. The value of traditional telecommunications business rapidly diminished, coupled with multiple challenges from a complex and rapidly-changing policy environment,” China Mobile chairman Yang Jie said.

    “In order to counter market competition, overcome the major obstacles in the ongoing reforms and enhance management, we continued to encourage everyone across the Company to take the ‘Big Connectivity’ strategy even further and implement the integrated development of the “four growth engines”.”

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  • Hyperscale operator capex jumped 43% in 2018

    Hyperscale operator capex jumped 43% in 2018

    New data from Synergy Research Group revealed that hyperscale operator capex reached over $32 billion in Q4, outperforming the first three quarters of the year, which had themselves set records.

    Full-year hyperscale capex jumped 43% to almost $120 billion. Meanwhile telco capex was over double that of hyperscale operators, but notably telco spending remained at the same level as the previous two years. The top five hyperscale spenders in 2018 were Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. Coincidentally their aggregate 2018 capex was almost identical to the capex of the top five telco spenders – China Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, NTT and Deutsche Telekom.

    The hyperscale data is based on analysis of the capex and data center footprint of 20 of the world’s major cloud and internet service firms, including the largest operators in IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, search, social networking and e-commerce.

    Outside of the top five, other leading hyperscale spenders in 2018 included Alibaba, Tencent, IBM, JD.com and Baidu. Much of the hyperscale capex goes towards building, expanding and equipping huge data centers, which have now grown in number to 439.

    The telco data is based on tracking and analysis of the world’s 40 largest telcos, which in aggregate account for 85% of the communications services market.

    “The hyperscale operators are quickly becoming the capex kings of the IT world,” said John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group. “On average hyperscale operator revenues are growing by 20% per year driven by expansion of cloud services, e-commerce, social media and online advertising; and it is notable that the leading players are investing an ever-increasing share of their revenues into capex. This is in stark contrast to telcos who are seeing neither revenues nor capex growing. We do not see these trends changing any time soon.”

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  • China Mobile, partners launch first 5G devices

    China Mobile, partners launch first 5G devices

    Members of the China Mobile-led 5G Device Forerunner Initiative have used Mobile World Congress to announce the launch of their first batch of devices, including China Mobile’s own in-house developed Forerunner One.

    Forerunner One is a 5G mobile smart hub device powered by Qualcomm’s inaugural Snapdragon X50 5G modem.

    The device supports connections in sub-6GHz 5G frequencies including the 2.6-GHz band, and is designed to convert high-speed 5G data into Wi-Fi and WiGig signals.

    It comes installed with Android 9.0 and an AI voice assistant, and is expected to reach the market in the first half of 2019.

    Meanwhile the members of the initiative have also used the event to launch four 5G chipsets – from Qualcomm, Huawei, MediaTek and Unisoc respectively – as well as 5G devices from Huawei, vivo, OPPO, ZTE, Xiaomi and Samsung.

    Some of the launched devices support both nonstandalone and standalone 5G, and others support peak throughputs of up to 4.67Gbps in sub-6GHz frequencies.

    The 5G Device Forerunner Initiative was established a year ago during the GTI Summit in Barcelona. So far 36 members comprising all aspects of the device industry have participated in the initiative.

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  • China Mobile Hong Kong names IoT startup competition finalists

    China Mobile Hong Kong names IoT startup competition finalists

    China Mobile Hong Kong has announced the four finalists who will represent Hong Kong in the semi-finals of the China Mobile OneNET Start-ups Marathon Competition later this month.

    Bravolinear Tech, IOTANET, Peacify and Stoneroad IOT will compete with IoT experts from across mainland China during the semi-final competition in Chongqing.

    Bravolinear Tech has developed a narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) based intelligent sensor system for elderly care. IOTANET developed a class consortium blockchain for smart community and device sharing. Peacify is working on a wearable device for monitoring the health of newborn babies. Stoneroad is applying IoT technology to monitor the health of trees on public property.

    The four companies won the first Hong Kong version of the marathon competition, which parent company China Mobile Limited has held in China for the past two years.

    China Mobile Hong Kong worked with HKSTP, the Communications Association of Hong Kong (CAHK) and the Hong Kong Wireless Technology Industry Association (WTIA) to organise the event.

    The startups competed with six other hand-picked teams of entrepreneurs. The teams were provided with free training sessions and technical support before the finals of the Hong Kong contest, which took place last month.

    Each of the four winners will receive a HK$50,000 seed fund as well as being invited to participate in the semi-final competition.

    The Hong Kong version of the competition was designed to align with the HKSAR government’s Smart City Blueprint. It focused on the six key themes of smart transportation, smart living, smart environment, smart city, smart government, and smart finance.

  • IoT to be a $1.8tr revenue opportunity for cellcos

    IoT to be a $1.8tr revenue opportunity for cellcos

    The Internet of Things will represent a $1.8 trillion revenue opportunity for mobile operators by 2026, thanks in part by the early deployment of commercial low power wide area (LPWA) networks in licensed spectrum, according to the GSMA.

    Research conducted for the industry association by Machina Research found that new mobile IoT applications and services represent huge growth opportunities for mobile operators.

    To date 12 operators have launched 15 commercial mobile IoT services. These include China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, South Korea’s KT and LG Uplus as well as Singapore’s M1.

    Operators are enhancing their  their licensed cellular networks with narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) and LTE machine-to-machine (LTE-M) technologies utilising global 3GPP standards.

    Mobile IoT networks are expected to have 862 million active connections by 2022, representing 56% of all LPWA connections.

    The largest revenue opportunities for the IoT include consumer demand for connected home ($441 billion), consumer electronics ($376 billion) and connected car ($273 billion) technologies.

    The connected energy market is meanwhile expected to reach $128 billion by 2026 as local governments and consumers seek smarter ways to manage utilities, and revenues from connected cities are on track to reach $78 billion by this time.

    “There is a real sense of momentum behind Mobile IoT networks in licensed spectrum, with multiple commercial launches around the world, as well as the availability of hundreds of different applications and solutions, but there is still much to be done,” GSMA CTO Alex Sinclair said.

    “Many operators are already reaping the benefits of deploying Mobile IoT and we encourage others to act now to capitalise on this clear market opportunity and further accelerate the development of the Internet of Things.”

  • China Mobile, SAIC, Huawei demo 5G remote driving

    China Mobile, SAIC, Huawei demo 5G remote driving

    China Mobile, SAIC Motor and Huawei have jointly demonstrated the first 5G-based remote driving technology with a consumer car.

    The demonstration at Mobile World Congress Shanghai involved using a Huawei-provided 5G solution connecting SAIC Motor’s smart concept car the iGS, with China Mobile providing the connectivity.

    The remote driving field test involved a driver located over 30km away from the vehicle, and used HD video cameras installed on the vehicle to send multiple real-time video feeds to provide the driver with a 240-degree view of the vehicle’s surroundings, more than the average binocular peripheral vision.

    Control signals for steering, acceleration and brakes were also transmitted over the 5G network in real time using 5G’s ultra-low latency capabilities.

    End-to-end latency for all vehicle control functions was less than 10 milliseconds, providing an eight centimeter distance between breaking and actual deceleration when the vehicle was traveling at 30km/h.

    Remote driving can be used to augment autonomous vehicles and has a range of potential applications, particularly in harsh or dangerous environments like mining or waste disposal sites, Huawei said.

    The technology could allow a single person to manage a fleet of autonomous vehicles, providing human intervention as needed such as in emergency situations.

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  • China Mobile, Huawei showcase 5G SBA proto

    China Mobile, Huawei showcase 5G SBA proto

    China Mobile and Huawei have used Mobile World Congress Shanghai to showcase the world’s first 5G core network prototype using service-based architecture (SBA).

    The prototype is based on the 3GPP’s 5G SBA standard. Under SBA, core network functions are defined as loosely coupled, combinable services that can be flexibly scheduled based on standard interface protocol. These elements are self-contained, reusable and able to be independently managed.

    Functions of the 5G SBA prototype include service registration, discovery and authorization, as well as service operations and service-oriented 5G basic business processes such as device registration and connection establishment and release.

    “The service-based architecture shows that 5G is a truly Cloud Native design. It makes carrier networks more agile, flexible, scalable, and open,” China Mobile Research Institute GM Yang Zhiqiang said.

    “We will work to reduce its complexity, and look forward to working with all industry players to accelerate completion of international standards and product R&D. Our goal is to quickly put SBA into large-scale commercial use and enable 5G operations.”

    The companies said the successful demonstration of the 5G SBA prototype provides a foundation for the IMT-2020 Promotion Group’s 5G core network testing.

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  • ZTE, China Mobile complete NB-IoT field trial

    ZTE, China Mobile complete NB-IoT field trial

    ZTE and China Mobile have announced they have completed the operator’s first narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) field test in Guangzhou.

    The trial involved the validation of core network, service, terminals and wireless equipment for NB-IoT with both single mode and multi-mode networking.

    Testing concentrated on performance, including users’ data rate, delay and coverage enhancements. ZTE provided all the equipment for the trial, including virtual core network, 2T4R base stations and terminals using a ZTE custom-developed chip.

    China Mobile is conducting NB-IoT trials in four provinces – Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Fuzhou, and is working with only one vendor in each of these provinces to allow it to deeply study and verify various NB-IoT features.

    Guangdong Mobile’s field test is the largest-scale among the four provinces with nearly 200 sites constructed. ZTE said this trial was also the only field test to accomplish specified test items dedicated to the NB-IoT protocol, including all combinations of uplink channels and services specified in NB-IoT protocol standards.

    The trial also exclusively supported the sub-carrier interval of 3.75KHz and 15KHz simultaneously, marking the world’s first 3.75KHz test.

    ZTE separately announced it has completed verification for its emergency communication solution based on drone technology, in collaboration with the Quanzhou branch of China Telecom.

    The lightweight (15 kilogram) solution comprises a drone equipped with a ZTE Pico base station and customer premises equipment that can be easily transported and deployed to a rescue scene.

    The test demonstrated that the drone can complete preparation and be in the air within 10 minutes, and can deliver a downlink peak data rate of 30Mbps and a VoLTE speech quality mean opinion score of 3.3.

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  • China Mobile service revenue up 6.7% in 2016

    China Mobile service revenue up 6.7% in 2016

    China Mobile has recorded a five-year high growth in service revenue growth for 2016, due to strong mobile data revenue growth.

    Operating revenue for the year grew 6% to 708.42 billion yuan ($102.7 billion), with service revenue up 6.7% to 623.42 billion yuan.

    During the year, wireless data traffic became China Mobile’s single largest revenue source for the first time, after growing by 43.5% to account for 46.2% of total service revenue.

    Net profit grew a slim 0.2% to 108.74 billion yuan ($15.78 billion), but excluding the gains from the disposal of tower assets to telecommunications infrastructure sharing joint venture China Tower in the prior year, profit would have grown 10.5%.

    China Mobile added 223 million 4G customers throughout the year, bringing its total 4G base to 535 million and representing a penetration rate of 63%. The company also added 400,000 4G base stations to its network, taking its total population coverage to more than 1.3 billion.

    The operator’s total mobile customer base grew 2.7% from 2015 to 848.9 million.

    On the fixed line front, China Mobile added 22.59 million broadband customers, taking the total to 77.62 million, with 76.9% of these subscribed to services with speeds of at least 20Mbps.

    China Mobile is the last of China’s big three operators to report its results for 2016. China Mobile’s performance compares to a 6.4% increase in operating revenue and 10.2% decline in net profit for China Telecom, as well as a 94.1% slump in net profit and 1% decrease in operating revenue for China Unicom.

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  • China Mobile, Ericsson demo IoT-powered factory

    China Mobile, Ericsson demo IoT-powered factory

    China Mobile and Ericsson have completed a trial involving what the companies say is the world’s first cellular IoT-based connected factory.

    The companies are presenting the outcomes of the trial at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona.

    The factory is implementing multiple applications for low-power wide area (LPWA) networks and devices, including production line monitoring, warehouse monitoring and package and materials tracking.

    Ericsson’s demonstration in Barcelona highlights a connected high-precision screwdriver, with motion sensors attached to NB-IoT modules that transmit real-time data from the tools to the cellular IoT network.

    The factory has around 1000 high-precision screwdrivers that each require routine calibrations and lubrications based on usage.

    The solution being developed for the factory covers terminals, networks to the platform and analytics.

    It is powered by Ericsson radio equipment and NB-IoT software, as well as Intel’s pre-commercial NB-IoT software, an Intel modem embedded in a Fibocom module and China Mobile’s OneNet IoT platform.

    “The combination of cellular IoT and Industry 4.0 has so far been fairly unexplored,” Ericsson head of north east Asia Chris Houghton said.

    “Enabling IoT network technology such as Cellular LPWA, together with cloud-based solutions, give manufacturing firms access to more information than ever before. The opportunity to use data to increase productivity is not only beneficial to a firm, but the whole of society as well.”

    China Mobile has been helping to lead the development of cellular IoT technology, having completed the world’s first lab testing on NB-IoT and moving towards large-scale field trials.

  • China Mobile, GSMA, Huawei to address NFV reliability

    China Mobile, GSMA, Huawei to address NFV reliability

    China Mobile, the GSMA and Huawei have agreed during Mobile World Congress 2017 to jointly build an assessment framework for achieving carrier-grade NFV reliability.

    The project aims to combine industry efforts to construct a scalable framework for NFV in telecoms networks enabling proactive, flexible and intelligent network maintenance.

    Because of the difficulties surrounding locating network faults when using complex network technologies such as NFV, operators are looking to move towards a proactive network maintenance model to eliminate potential issues before user services are affected, the partners said.

    GSMA technical director Michele Zarri commented that carrier-grade NFV-reliability is a critical aspect of the virtualization of mobile networks, and is in-line with the industry body’s 5G Network Virtualization project.

    “There will be numerous business opportunities and challenges in the 5G era. However, Five-9s reliability is required for virtualized networks,” he said.

    “The GSMA will work to define network requirements and formalize the assessment framework including metrics and measurements for achieving carrier-grade NFV reliability.”

    Huawei GM for global customer support services Zhao Yongjun added that through the collaboration, the vendor aims “to consolidate industry efforts to explore new digital technologies and carry out joint-innovation to create tomorrow’s proactive intelligent network maintenance system.”

    He said the system will support “real-time, intelligent perception and preventative measures to meet increasing ultra-reliable network requirements.”

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