Chinese firms say the new agreement will allow them to offer network slicing for IoT, internet of vehicles and industrial control
China’s second-largest mobile operator, China Unicom, has signed an agreement with Huawei for the development of 5G network slicing technologies.
The two companies said they plan to jointly carry out research, demonstrations and applications of 5G network slicing.
Under the new partnership, both companies will develop and promote network slicing for various vertical markets, such as virtual reality/augmented reality games, industrial control, the internet of things and connected vehicles.
“Network slicing is a key native capability of 5G, which can maximize the efficiency of communications networks and reduce network construction and O&M costs. In the 5G era, the concepts of slice-as-a-capability and slice-as-a-product have become an industry consensus,” said Zhang Yong, president of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute. “China Unicom will demonstrate the multi-scenario slicing service in vertical industries and deepen the integration with the industry to facilitate digitalization in China.”
“We hope that both parties can focus efforts on terminals, chips, networks, and vertical industries, accelerate the slice demonstration and application, and jointly build a new 5G slicing ecosystem in 2018 and 2019, for the purpose of formulating the 5G blueprint, creating completely new markets for 5G, and achieving a win-win through 5G network deployment,” the executive added.
Network slicing allows the resources of a physical network to be flexibly allocated into multiple virtualized network slices in order to adapt to the needs of different industrial services, such as industrial control, automated driving, and remote medical treatment.
China Unicom’s net profits grows 249% year-over-year in Q1
In related news, China Unicom said it has increased its net profit by 249% year-over-year to 3.01 billion yuan ($478 million) in the first quarter of the year. The telco’s overall service revenue grew 8.4% year-on-year to 66.6 billion yuan.
The operator’s 4G subscriber base grew by 19.3 million during Q1 to 194 million. LTE technology accounted for 67% of China Unicom’s overall base at the end of the quarter. The company’s total mobile subscriber base hit 294 million at the end of March.
China Unicom also said its average revenue per user increased 2.6% from Q1 2017 to 47.90 yuan.
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers, also reported its financial results for the first quarter of the year. The telco ended March with 672 million subscribers in the LTE segment after a net addition of 22 million 4G subscribers in the first three months. LTE accounted for 75% of China Mobile’s overall base at the end of Q1.
The telco also reported that its total mobile subscriber base increased by 12 million to 899 million.
China Mobile’s quarterly net profit climbed 4.1% year-on-year to 25.8 billion yuan, with operating revenue growing 0.8% to 185.5 billion yuan. Service revenue rose 3.6% year-on-year to 166.7 billion.
