China Mobile says it plans to build more than 100 5G base stations in Shanghai by the end of 2018, as a step toward its goal of achieving large-scale commercial 5G deployment by 2020, The Paper.cn reported.
The company has already built two 5G base stations in Shanghai alongside opening a 5G lab to explore possible commercial applications with its partners, said Yan Jun, general manager of the planning and development department of China Mobile Shanghai branch.
Yan said the newest 5G network applications will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress to be held in Shanghai this June.
He said China Mobile's partners are currently dedicating more time and effort into applying 5G to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and have so far seen progress in experiments of real-time image transmission. In the future, they will test the 5G network on UVA security defense and logistics.
Yan said the existing base stations can support broadband operations such as rapid transmissions of virtual reality, augmented reality and 3D holographic images.
He said 5G is currently only on display and it will take some time before it reaches consumers.
