Operator Finance Wu Bihui/Wen
Recently, Wang Tao, managing director of Huawei and director of ICT Infrastructure Business Management Committee, said at the 2022 Global Mobile Broadband Forum that 5.5G has made three key progress and advocated the industry to prepare for five aspects: standards, spectrum, industrial chain, ecology and application. So does that mean that the three major domestic operators should replace them with 5.5G technology and equipment in 5G construction in the future? That may not be true.
2022, China's 5G commercial license plates celebrated its third anniversary. These three years are also an important three years for my country's three major operators to vigorously develop 5G, and have invested huge capital expenditures to achieve the world's leading number of 5G base stations and user scale. But it is precisely because of the huge capital expenditure that the three major operators have not yet relied on 5G to start making a profit.
At the same time, the capital expenditure spent on 5G construction by the three major operators is also fixed every year, and as the investment peak enters, starting this year, the three major operators have begun to reduce 5G spending.
For example, in 2022, China Mobile expects capital expenditure of 185.2 billion yuan, of which 5G-related capital expenditure is about 110 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.5%. China Telecom expects capital expenditure to be 93 billion yuan in 2022, of which 5G network investment accounts for 36.6%, and the specific amount is 34 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of about 10.5%.
China Unicom said, "The peak of 5G capital expenditure is mainly concentrated in 2020-2022. In the past three years, China Unicom's annual network expenditure plan is about 70 billion, of which 5G investment accounts for about 35 billion. After three years, 5G investment will begin to enter a decline stage. Unless 5G traffic finds a new breakthrough point to trigger a rapid increase in 5G traffic, it will be adjusted in time."
So, the three major operators themselves have declined in their investment in 5G construction. In this case, how can the three major operators spend extra money to change 5.5G technology and equipment? Unless this technology upgrade does not require increasing the cost of operator network construction, this is impossible.
In addition to this, 5.5G is not mainly for the consumer's application experience. 5.5G is actually to solve the application problems of 5G in the industry and enterprises. Therefore, a major focus and problem for operators at present is how to promote industries and enterprises to achieve the real digital transformation of in , and then we can better start the 5.5G era.
5.5G is a better technology and is definitely useful, but the capital expenditure of the three major domestic operators is impossible to overspent. That is to say, whether it is 5G or 5.5G, the annual expenditure of the three major operators is still so much. It is unlikely to spend extra money to buy 5.5G equipment beyond the budget.
