The Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 conference, held from February 26 to March 1, highlighted 5G technology market in a big way. Taking place every 12 months in Barcelona, the gigantic tech show is a chance for new gadgets to be unveiled.

A ZTE employee introduces the company’s mobile phone to an attendee at the ZTE exhibition hall of the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Jiang Bo from People’s Daily)

5G is the next generation of cellular networks, and it promises to be a considerable leap in speed beyond the current LTE networks. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association said in a report that broad application of 5G will soon be realized. By 2025, the 5G network is expected to cover 40 percent of the global population, with its users accounting for 14 percent of total mobile internet users.

Huawei unveiled its first 5G chip in Barcelona. The company claims that its Huawei Balong 5G01 chip is the first to support the new 3GPP standard for 5G networks, and that it should be able to download data at 2.3Gbps. This Chinese tech giant also released a complete range of full-scenario 5G wireless product solutions. These products support all 5G frequency bands and cover different types of sites including tower sites, pole-mounted sites, and small cells to suit deployment needs in diverse scenarios.

Going full blast into 5G technology, Chinese enterprises represented by Huawei, China Mobile and ZTE have joined the top ranks of the world’s telecommunications companies.

At MWC, China Mobile announced its plan to build the world's largest 5G test network. The company also disclosed that it would start field tests in five Chinese cities this year: Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Suzhou and Wuhan. By 2019, the new generation of communications technology will be launched for pre-commercial use.

China will be able to reach a pre-commercial level of major links on the 5G industrial chain by the end of 2018, start the construction of 5G networks in 2019 and begin commercial use in 2020, according to the plan of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as well as the country’s three major telecom carriers.

Photo shows the exhibition hall of the 2018 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo: CFP)

The three major carriers China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have all unveiled 5G pilot projects in Chinese cities.

In November 2017, Qualcomm Technologies, ZTE and China Mobile announced they had achieved the world’s first end-to-end 5G NR Interoperability Data Testing (IoDT) system demonstrating a data connection based on 3GPP R15 standard. This further accelerated the commercialization of 5G technology.

From the development of 3G, 4G to 5G technologies, Chinese enterprises have been playing a bigger role in upgrading the industry and have become forerunners in the field, said ZTE chief scientist Xiang Jiying.