(Yicai) Dec. 13 -- Shanghai continues to lead China in the number of outdoor base stations for fifth-generation mobile network technology, the city’s vice mayor revealed.

Shanghai has built more than 83,000 5G base stations, also known as cell towers, and over 10,000 three-component carrier 5G-advanced base stations, which combine three different frequency bands to create a single, wider bandwidth for faster data transfer, keeping it ahead of all other cities in China on both counts, Chen Jie said at the China 5G Development Conference yesterday. 

Some 63 percent of Shanghai’s network traffic was carried via 5G this year, according to the industry ministry, with just over 38 5G base stations per 10,000 residents and 3.1 million 5G Internet of Things terminal connections, each of which leads the country.

Shanghai, one of the first cities selected by the country’s big three telecom operators -- China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom -- in which to launch 5G networks, is home to more than 52 percent of the nation’s core 5G talent, Chen said. Major carriers have invested over CNY52 billion (USD7.1 billion) in Shanghai during China's 14th five-year plan, he added.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of China’s commercial deployment of 5G, which has achieved remarkable progress in technology, industrial development, and application expansion, Wang Zhiqin, vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told Yicai. It also marks the start of 5G-A commercialization, with the industry starting to build and deploy networks and exploring new uses, she added.

Under to the 14th five-year plan set in 2021, Shanghai aims to construct and operate 70,000 5G base stations by the end of next year and increase fixed broadband access speeds to 500 megabits per second.

The plan also includes work on 6G network architecture innovation and foundational research into forward-looking and shared key technologies, focusing on cutting-edge applications in satellite internet, immersive experiences, autonomous driving, and smart factories.

Editor: Martin Kadiev