Base stations offering high-speed fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks have now exceeded 3.19 million, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in China has said. The country now hosts 22.6 5G stations for every 10,000 residents, CGTN reported.
The 5G mobile networks offer twice as fast data download speeds as its predecessor 4G connections and improved traffic capacity while reducing latency. However, like any other network, the user experience on the platform is dependent on the number of users connected to the network and sharing the spectrum available.
China has taken up an ambitious $50 billion project to rapidly scale up its 5G infrastructure. Earlier in July, Interesting Engineering reported that China built 600,000 base stations in just three months and now according to the relevant ministry, the total number of base stations has surpassed three million already.
Not just videos and games
Official numbers for the US suggest that the US built 100,000 base stations between the years 2019 and 2021 and while Americans are looking at 5G to stream videos better and play games on their increasingly powerful smartphones, China is looking to deploy the technology for improved delivery of public services.
According to MIIT spokesperson, Zhao Zhiguo, the country has launched 109 pilot remote education programs that use 5G communication while in the medical sector, patient consultation as well as treatment is now happening online with smarter medical equipment.
While entertainment is also being streamlined using these faster connections, the ministry also experimented with using 5G features to offer more three-dimensional experiences of watching sports during the recently concluded 19th Asian Games, China Daily reported.
Supercharging production, technology
China's ambitious project is not just aimed at delivering different types of content to users but also taking its production capacities to the next level. The country has been working to incorporate 5G technology into mining, power supply, and other industrial sectors in a bid to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
China intends to leverage the power of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), along with the Internet of Things (IoT) to transition to high-tech manufacturing and has been increasing spending in these areas over the past few years.
5G technology is now part of 70 percent of the country's economic sectors resulting in rapid growth in areas such as new energy vehicles (NEVs), photovoltaics, spacecraft, and aerospace sectors.
More than 10,000 digital workshops and smart factories have been set up to aid digital transformation in these areas and the results are already showing, the ministry claimed. Mobile phone production numbers crossed 1.09 billion in the last three quarters, while photovoltaics saw a 63.2 percent year-on-year growth to 384 GW.
In the NEV sector, production recorded a 33.7 percent growth reaching 6.3 million units in the last three quarters while supporting infrastructure such as charging stations and battery swap outlets seeing expansions.
China also claims that it has contributed to formulating global standards around 5G services and its expertise in the domain is evident in the 42 percent share of global patents awarded thus far.
Originally published on Interesting Engineering : Original article