The market has long been dominated by the big three of China Unicom, China Telecom and China Mobile.
The 5G turf war is set to intensify as China Broadnet begins to offer 5G services at a lower price compared to its competitors.
In 2019, Chinese cable and television operators came together to form a group known as China Broadcasting Network (CBN) and they won 80MHz of 700MHz spectrum in the country’s 5G spectrum auction.
China Broadnet also has 100MHz in the 4.9GHz band but has little-to-no 5G base stations of its own. For this reason, it has been reported in local news that the firm will initially cooperate with China Mobile to build a nationwide network.
The company has since rebranded to China Broadnet and will aim to target a different segment of Chinese consumers through its mobile and media company.
Currently, China’s big three operators have accumulated over 410 million 5G mobile subscribers in total.
Meanwhile, China has also been stepping up its push to pioneer the research and development of 6G technologies in recent months.
Earlier this month, the IMT-2030 Promotion Group, the flagship platform in China to promote 6G R&D and international cooperation signed an MoU on 6G smart networks and service industry association.
