A future of driverless cars, virtual reality and other advanced services beckon as China’s ZTE bets on massive 5G roll-out

China is one step closer to achieving the reality of seamless, super high speed communications that will enable driverless cars, virtual reality education and nationwide health care services after a partnership comprising China Mobile, Qualcomm and ZTE accelerated efforts to finalise technical standards for the next generation of smartphones.

With the world’s largest population and most number of internet users, China is making a huge bet that the wide roll-out of 5G mobile infrastructure by the country’s three main telecommunications network operators would support the country’s rapid digital transformation – enabling a raft of advanced applications and services that were the stuff of science fiction just decades ago.

The international authorities overseeing the creation of a unified standard for 5G mobile technologies are expected to release the initial specifications next year and the final phase in 2019, paving the way for the commercial deployment of 5G services by mobile network operators from 2020.

“China Mobile may try to launch 5G services in 2019, ahead of the original schedule, as it is aggressively pushing for the launch of the next generation network in China,” Fan Xiaobing, a senior vice-president at ZTE, said at the company’s global 5G event in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

In the second half this year, ZTE established a real 5G network at the University in Guangzhou to test the future network.