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Era of 5G

Last week, I attended the 5th World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, Zhejiang. The discussion of the WIC this year focused on the future trend in Internet application and technology. In fact, no matter we are talking about internet economy, big data, artificial intelligence or reindustrialisation, the digitalisation and informatisation of the supporting business models rely heavily on the connectivity and data transmission of the cloud system. The development of 5G technology is therefore particularly important as it can provide the infrastructure system for a high-speed and stable communications network.

The key features of 5G technology, when compared with the current mobile network, include ultra-high speed in wireless data transmission (10-20 times faster than the current 4G services), high reliability on mobile broadband services and low latency. This implies further enhancement of the fluency of mobile broadcasting, and at the same time, a wider application of Visual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

5G will revolutionise mobile user experience and is the basic element in the development of smart city. Many advanced economies have been actively developing 5G infrastructures, reflecting the potential and importance of the technology. Hong Kong is also proactively preparing the launching of 5G network and services. In terms of spectrum supply, a total of 4500MHz will be made available for the development of 5G services in 2019, which is eight times of the spectrum currently assigned for public mobile services for 2G, 3G and 4G.

Since the roll-out of 5G networks involves installing a larger number of base stations, the Government plans to launch a pilot scheme in the first quarter of 2019 to proactively open up around 1000 suitable Government premises for installation of base stations. The application procedures will be streamlined to speed up the application and approval processes, so as to facilitate the operators in establishing 5G networks as much as possible, thereby benefitting the end-users.

November 11, 2018