China awards 5G licences to country’s major telecoms network operators, cable network giant
- Hong Kong-listed carriers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, as well as China Broadcasting Network, were granted licences
- Move comes after US government put telecoms gear provider Huawei Technologies on trade blacklist
China on Thursday granted commercial 5G licences to the country’s three telecommunications network operators and the nation’s cable network giant, signalling major new investments in the world’s largest mobile market amid a raging tech war with the United States.
Hong Kong-listed carriers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, as well as China Broadcasting Network, were each awarded a licence to run commercial 5G mobile services, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
While South Korea, the US, Australia and the UK have launched initial commercial 5G services in the second quarter, the scale of China’s market is likely to dwarf the combined size of those economies, negating any first-mover advantage.
“This marks China’s official entry to the 5G era,” Huawei Technologies, which has up to a 50 per cent share of the country’s telecoms equipment market, said in a statement on Thursday. “Huawei will fully support Chinese operators to build 5G [networks] with comprehensive end-to-end 5G capabilities. We believe that in the near future, China’s 5G will lead the world.”
