The three major telecom operators released the latest user data, showing that the combined number of 5G package users across China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom exceeded 750 million. Earlier data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed that in January, domestic 5G mobile phone shipments reached 26.324 million units, accounting for 79.7% of total mobile phone shipments during the same period.
These two data points demonstrate that we have entered the 5G era, and the speed of 5G adoption has far exceeded many people's expectations. As 5G gradually becomes mainstream, operators are also accelerating the phasing out of relatively outdated network infrastructure, both domestically and internationally.
Recently, US carrier AT&T announced the official shutdown of its WCDMA network across the country, T-Mobile will shut down its CDMA network on March 31 and its WCDMA network by July 1, and Verizon plans to shut down its CDMA network on December 31. This means that the three major US carriers will complete the complete phase-out of their 3G networks this year. In fact, China's three major carriers have also been gradually phasing out and phasing out their 3G networks, freeing up spectrum for 5G. In the future, 4G and 5G will become the backbone networks in our daily lives.
China Mobile: 3G has already been cleared, and 2G will be here soon.
China Mobile is the strongest operator in China, surpassing the other two in terms of both user numbers and revenue/profit. However, when it comes to phasing out outdated networks, China Mobile carries a heavier historical burden. As we all know, in the 3G era, China Mobile obtained a TD-SCDMA license, whose network quality, user experience, and terminal support were far inferior to China Unicom's WCDMA and China Telecom's CDMA. Therefore, China Mobile preemptively completed the deployment of its 4G network and began phasing out its 3G network during the 4G era.
Back in January 2019, the Fuzhou Radio Management Bureau sent a letter to Fuzhou Mobile, agreeing to deregister 6,535 TD-SCDMA base stations. This meant that Fuzhou Mobile had officially completed its 3G network shutdown at that time, and the TD-SCDMA shutdown process was also made public. China Mobile's 3G network shutdown was not limited to Fuzhou, but was rolled out nationwide.
Of course, to mitigate the negative impact of the 3G network phase-out, China Mobile has undertaken a lot of supporting measures. On the one hand, China Mobile has been vigorously promoting VoLTE, achieving full deployment as early as 2017, two to three years ahead of China Unicom and China Telecom. The widespread adoption of VoLTE allows users to make and receive calls on 4G networks without downgrading to 2G/3G networks.
On the other hand, the 2G network with comprehensive mobile signal coverage was retained as a supplement to non-VoLTE scenarios. The GSM network was not powerful enough for Internet access, but it had no problem carrying voice services.
Since entering the 5G era, China Mobile's progress has remained remarkably rapid. As of November 2021, China Mobile had deployed 560,000 5G base stations, accounting for over 70% of the global total. Furthermore, according to a recent report from a user on the "Communications Home" forum, China Mobile has already achieved VoNR coverage on the N41 frequency band in some rural areas. This means that China Mobile users can now make and receive calls on the 5G network without experiencing network drops, further diminishing the role of the 2G network.
In February, 51CTO reported that China Mobile had begun phasing out its 2G network in Chongqing, and starting March 1st, new users would experience restrictions on 2G functionality. Regarding low-speed scenarios related to IoT products, China Mobile's solution is to subscribe to NB-IoT/Cat.1 packages, which will no longer be carried by the GSM network. China Mobile's phasing out of the 2G network is a natural progression, as 5G networks are being fully rolled out and covered, and 4G is already highly mature. Shutting down the 2G GSM network frees up a large amount of high-quality low-frequency spectrum, providing greater support for expanding 5G coverage.
China Telecom: Saying Goodbye to CDMA Completely
As mentioned earlier, China Telecom obtained a CDMA license during the 3G era. While it was significantly better than China Mobile's TD-SCDMA in many aspects, it was still inferior to China Unicom's WCDMA. CDMA is a Qualcomm proprietary technology, and terminals using CDMA had to pay Qualcomm a licensing fee, for which China Telecom also invested heavily. Furthermore, many 3G phones did not support CDMA, causing China Telecom to lose many customers. As 4G gradually became widespread and the 5G era approached, China Telecom viewed CDMA as a liability and initiated a series of measures.
In 2019, Lei Technology reported that the Redmi K30 5G was criticized by some netizens for not supporting the CDMA standard. In reality, this accusation was unfair to Xiaomi; the lack of CDMA support was a requirement from China Telecom. China Telecom's terminal network access requirements state that "5G terminals are not allowed to have CDMA mode." Telecom also requires that phones not support VoLTE on/off, presumably to prevent users from having to downgrade to the CDMA network when making calls after turning it off. Of course, Telecom dares to make such a requirement because it has basically achieved VoLTE deployment.
In June 2020, an internal document from China Telecom was leaked online. The document revealed that 3G-EVDO data services would be gradually shut down starting June 1, 2020. Furthermore, the Chinese version of the iPhone 13 series, released in 2021, quietly removed support for CDMA, making it likely the first Apple phone in recent years to not support China Telecom's 2G/3G networks.
China Unicom: Still reluctant to part with WCDMA
We all know that China Unicom is the weakest of the three major telecom operators. Perhaps precisely because of this, Unicom obtained the best WCDMA license during the 3G era. I (Xiao Lei) used the 3G services of all three operators at the time, and overall, Unicom's experience was the best. On the WCDMA network, download speeds could exceed 1MB/s, almost reaching the threshold of 4G. Moreover, most 3G phones on the market at that time supported the WCDMA standard, including overseas versions. Simultaneously, leveraging the WCDMA standard, Unicom achieved decent 3G network coverage and even capitalized on the iPhone's popularity through its partnership with Apple, thus expanding its influence.
However, with the advent of the 4G era, China Unicom's weak financial resources struggled to cope with the soaring costs of 4G investment. Even now, when Xiao Lei encounters 4G network congestion while using a Unicom SIM card, switching to a 3G network often provides a better experience. Therefore, the WCDMA network became the best supplement for Unicom's 4G era, and downgrading voice calls to 3G did not cause a significant deterioration in the experience. Perhaps for this reason, Unicom was not particularly proactive in promoting VoLTE, only fully opening it up in 2019, and iPhones only supporting it at the end of that year.
Therefore, China Unicom, which has been relatively proactive in phasing out its 2G network, is not in a hurry to say goodbye to its 3G network. Miao Shouye, head of China Unicom's 5G co-construction and sharing working group, stated at the end of 2020 that Unicom's goal is to "first reduce 3G to one carrier frequency by the end of the year, accelerate the development of VoLTE to replace 3G voice, and promote the gradual withdrawal of 3G from the network; finally, to form a simplified target network for 4G+5G synergy." In the long run, Unicom will completely phase out its 3G network, but this process will be quite long, at least much longer than that of China Mobile and China Telecom.
What impact will this have on us?
To be honest, readers who have made it this far are likely loyal users of Lei Technology, and probably quite knowledgeable about technology and digital products. Their own devices are unlikely to be 3G-only. However, if we broaden our perspective, we can see a larger user base. Regarding the current number of 2G and 3G users, we don't yet have accurate data. However, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology can be used as a reference. As of the end of May 2020, the number of 2G users in China was approximately 200 million, and the number of 3G users is estimated to be similar.
For these users to minimize the negative impact of the 2G/3G network rollout, the best solution is naturally to upgrade their devices. In fact, the price of 5G phones has already dropped significantly, with many available around 1000 yuan. 4G phone prices have also reached a very low level. Currently, there are very few phones on the market that only support 3G or 2G; most are existing stock products from previous sales.
Compared to these "minority" users, many more people are probably worried about areas without 4G or 5G network coverage. If 2G/3G networks are also shut down, they'll be completely disconnected. However, there's no need to worry too much about this. There are now a large number of 4G base stations, and signal coverage is quite comprehensive. No signal or network access is generally only a very rare occurrence.
Both domestically and internationally, with the gradual arrival of the 5G era, the technologically outdated and user-unfriendly 2G/3G networks will naturally be phased out. The spectrum freed up by these networks will not be wasted, but will be used for newer network standards.
Saying goodbye to 3G, the mobile internet is moving towards the next generation.
Looking back over the past decade, it's clear that the iterative updates of mobile communication technology are inextricably linked to the development stages of the mobile internet. The highly mature 4G network ushered in the era of short videos, while the advent of the 3G era directly propelled the arrival of the mobile internet.
3G networks have transformed the science fiction of allowing users to access the internet anytime, anywhere into reality, and transformed the content on mobile phones from monotonous plain text into rich media information, while also providing fertile ground for the emergence of a large number of apps.
In early 2009, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued licenses to the three major telecom operators, marking China's entry into the 3G era. The iPhone 3GS was released that same year, becoming Apple's second phone to support 3G networks. In 2010, the number of apps on the Apple App Store surged. In the following years, Android smartphones rapidly developed and became widespread, and domestic Chinese mobile phone brands rose quickly.
Looking back now, the network experience in the 3G era was far from perfect. Speeds of only a couple hundred KB/s were barely enough for browsing text and images; watching high-definition videos online was a luxury. Data plans weren't cheap either; WiFi and caching were the most familiar terms to people back then.
But the 3G era also marked the beginning of our transition from PC internet to mobile internet, an unprecedented transformation. During this process, Nokia, the giant of the feature phone era, collapsed, Apple established its new empire, Microsoft suffered repeated setbacks, and Google became one of the two poles in a bipolar world.
The 3G era gave birth to the mobile internet world, the 4G era brought the short video era, and the 5G era we are entering will also bring us something new and unknown.
