Recent media reports indicate that T-Mobile, the second largest operator in the United States, has decided to close the 4G network acquired from sprint and will use its original 4G network and the 600MHz 5G network under construction to provide services to consumers. This shows that US operators Like Chinese operators, we use low-frequency bands to save 5G.
T-Mobile acquired sprint, the fourth largest operator in the United States, a few years ago, thus surpassing AT&T and becoming the second largest mobile operator in the United States. After the merger, it owned two 4G networks, resulting in high operating costs, so it recently decided to close Sprint. 4G network, only T-Mobile’s own 4G network is retained.
In addition, T-Mobile began to build a 5G network in the 600MHz frequency band as early as 2020, relying on the super coverage capability of 600MHz to provide consumers with more reliable 5G services. However, at that time, because 5G technology was not mature enough, the number of 5G base stations was too high. However, after several years of construction, 600MHz 5G has begun to show competitive advantages. It is equivalent to 4G in terms of speed, but it is better in terms of coverage.
Among the three major operators in the United States, AT&T is also developing 5G at low frequencies like T-Mobile. The 5G frequency band used by AT&T is 450MHz; Verizon, the largest operator in the United States, is developing 5G at mid-band frequency bands. Earlier media reports pointed out that the United States is more Consumers chose AT&T's 5G because the coverage is far better than Verizon's, and Verizon has an advantage in speed. However, consumers' first consideration is the signal issue.
The United States has promoted 5G millimeter wave technology, but operators believe that the base station coverage of 5G millimeter wave technology is too small and the cost of building 5G networks is ridiculously high. Therefore, US operators only use 5G millimeter wave technology as fixed broadband Supplement; Nowadays, 5G centimeter wave technology seems to have been abandoned by AT&T and T-Mobile because of its high cost, and only Verizon adopts it.
However, some people in the industry believe that AT&T and T-Mobile did not use mid-band to build 5G. This may be because the United States has great difficulties in clearing mid-band frequency bands. It is too expensive for operators to purchase mid-band frequency bands, so they chose to use them on 3G and 2G. The used low frequencies are cleared and used for 5G, which eliminates the huge expenditure on purchasing mid-band frequency bands.
China is the fastest country in the world to popularize 5G. At present, China has built 1.6 million 5G base stations , accounting for 60% of the global 5G base stations. The number of 5G users in China has reached nearly 900 million, and the number of 5G users accounts for 80% of the world. above. However, there is also a debate between 5G centimeter wave and low-frequency 5G in China.
China Unicom and China Telecom jointly build a 5G network using the 3.5GHz frequency band; China Mobile independently builds a 5G network using the 2.6GHz frequency band. Of the 1.6 million 5G base stations currently built, the average number of 5G base stations per 5G network is only about 800,000. Of course, 5G network coverage like
is far from covering the whole country and cannot be compared with the excellent coverage of 4G. China Mobile's 4G network has the most complete coverage. The frequency band used by the 4G network is 1.8GHz, and the number of base stations is as high as 2.4 million. It is estimated that the coverage of 2-3 5G base stations is equivalent to that of 4G base stations. However, the number of 5G base stations of China Mobile Only about one-third of 4G.
China Mobile built 700,000 4G base stations in the first year of commercial 4G in 2014. Now, it has taken 5G commercial 3 years to build about 800,000 5G base stations. Obviously, the construction progress of 5G is much slower than that of 4G, leading to such a result. It is because Chinese operators, like American operators, cannot afford the high investment and ultra-high operating costs of 5G and have slowed down the construction of 5G networks.
At this time, China Mobile and China Radio and Television's joint construction of 700MHz 5G seems to bring them hope. The industry expects that the 480,000 700MHz 5G base stations they have built will be able to basically cover the entire country after completion, providing consumers with a 5G network with excellent coverage. .
It can be seen from the choices of Chinese operators and US operators that whether it is 5G centimeter wave or 5G millimeter wave, the investment cost of 5G network is too high for them to bear. Now they are trying to use low-frequency 5G for consumption. Perhaps with the completion of low-frequency 5G networks, consumers will experience a completely different 5G network experience.
