700 MHz band is a golden frequency band suitable for mobile communication, yet its allocation still remains unsettled and attracts much attention in telecommunication industry and radio and television industry.
Recently, Zhang Yunyong, a member of the national committee of CPPCC and president of China Unicom Research Institute, suggested in an exclusive interview that the government should launch 5G low frequency plan as soon as possible and accelerate the release of high-quality low-frequency resources including 700 MHz and 450 MHz bands, laying the foundation for the follow-up R&D of operators, equipment manufacturers and application developers.
At present, the high and medium frequencies of 5G network are launched, however, the policy on the most important low frequency bands has been delayed. In 2018, 5G deployments will catch the most critical time point, while low frequency bands such as 700 MHz and 450 MHz are the top-quality ones, making it the most important work to launch 5G low frequency plan for the 5G deployment in China.
In terms of 5G frequencies, China has determined a part of the spectrum below 6 GHz and has made 3300-3600 MHz / 4800-5000 MHz frequencies as the working spectrum in 5G system plan, of which 3300-3400 MHz will be limited to indoor use.
In the millimeter-wave frequencies, MIIT has solicited opinions on the planning of 5G frequency usage including 24.75-27.5 GHz and 37-42.5 GHz, which showed a positive attitude about the relevant frequency allocation to the industry. That is to say, China has basically determined the high and medium-frequency bands in 5G networking.
5G low frequency bands get the most attention in this situation. At present, the existing low frequency band resources are still used in 2G and 4G networks, while the so-called digital dividend 700 MHz spectrum has been controlled by the radio and television industry, in other words, there is no low frequency resources allocated to 5G yet.
The 700 MHz band is always regarded as "digital dividend", which has the advantages of low signal transmission loss, wide coverage, strong penetration and low networking cost. In particular, 700 MHz is a golden band for 5G, advantages are obvious, first, the wide coverage can reduce the number of base stations and cut down the networking cost; second, it has strong diffraction ability and low transmission loss, the problem of indoor dead angle can be improved; third, the transmission efficiency is high, the Doppler frequency offset is lower and signal demodulation is more reliable. It is an ideal scheme to adopt dual-frequency network of 700 MHz and high frequency bands. In 5G deployment, high frequency bands can reach the requirement for high capacity while 700 MHz can solve the problems in wide coverage and indoor coverage.