China grants 5G licenses to major carriers, roll-out of green light

China has given the green light to its major state-owned mobile operators to start rolling out next-generation networks called 5G, according to a moving expert who was partly responding to the ongoing trade war with the US. United States.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the country issued Thursday 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Radio and Television. This means that these operators can begin to deploy 5G commercial applications. They received a license for testing at the end of last year.

The 5G network standard is considered essential because it can support the next generation of mobile devices in addition to new applications such as driverless cars.

Although the licenses have been issued, there is no guarantee that the networks will begin deploying 5G services immediately – although some companies have indicated that they will begin this year.

The GSMA, an organization representing mobile phone networks around the world, announced in a recent report that it plans for a large-scale deployment of 5G by 2020. According to the federation, the association will count the most large number of 5G connections in 2025, superior to North America and Europe combined. The GSMA expects China to reach 460 million 5G connections by the end of the year.

If China starts deploying 5G this year, it will be one of the first to do so. Some US carriers such as Verizon have deployed 5G in a limited number of cities. Carriers from the United Kingdom and South Korea have also launched 5G services.

China Unicom said in a statement released by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it would make a "dynamic and accurate investment in the construction of 5G" without giving any timetable. The other carriers did not immediately respond to a request for comment when they were contacted by CNBC.

China's decision to grant these licenses is part of a growing tension in the US trade war, which seems to be increasingly focused on technology and 5G. Even US President Donald Trump suggested that the networking standard was a battleground: "The race for 5G is launched and America must win," he said earlier. year.

The Trump administration has targeted Huawei, the world's largest maker of telecom equipment, by placing the company on a blacklist restricting its access to US technology – on which it relies heavily.

While China was initially planning a 5G deployment in 2020, Neil Shah, director of research at Counterpoint Research, said the calendar seemed "more aggressive now" with services likely to be launched later this year .

"Above all, the technological cold war is going on and China does not want to stay behind the United States and Korea," Shah said, explaining why China has accelerated its launch of 5G.

"Secondly, in light of Huawei's commercial ban, the (Chinese officials) want to give Huawei the means to use its equipment and deploy it before it can happen. no access to US components and equipment, "he added. "Huawei may have stored this equipment for a few months, so China will look to start the rollout by the end of this year before the Chinese New Year so that it can use the Chinese New Year to take advantage of the smartphone and 5G plans. 5G. "

The Chinese New Year is an important holiday that will take place at the end of January 2020.

–Hilary Pan of CNBC made an additional report.