According to informed sources, in order to develop 4G, China Unicom has to clear out part of 2G network in some pilot cities of 4G integration of networking to ensure more frequency bandwidth in 4G, this not only reflects that China Unicom doesn’t get enough support in FDD frequency resource from the state, but also that China Unicom is dedicated in FDD network construction.
In June 27th, the MIIT approved trial hybrid networking of China Unicom and China Telecom in 16 cities, i.e. the 4G network can adopt both the TDD and FDD standards. As we have learnt, the overall plan of network construction in China Unicom is to take 3G as the main carrying network of voice and data, and 4G as the high-speed data service access, in which the 4G network deployment is by the principle of enhancing both the network competitiveness and investment efficiency.
As reported, the 2G frequency clearance of China Unicom mainly occurred in the 16 cities that are allowed to develop 4G hybrid networking, because the upstream 1755-1765 MHz/downstream 1850-1860 MHz 2*10M frequency will be used by China Unicom, in order to meet the demand of 4G network, it will conduct the clearance of the original 2G network frequency.
Take China Unicom Shanghai branch for example, it has opened 4000 4G base stations in Shanghai, the key towns in outer ring and suburbs of Shanghai have good 4G signals. As it is reported, FDD will be the main carrying network of China Unicom Shanghai branch in the future, and TDD will provide services in the important hotspot data areas. In order to ensure higher bandwidth of FDD network, China Unicom Shanghai branch cleared part of 2G network in May, and took out 10 MHz resources to incorporate into the FDD network, added with the existing 10 MHz of FDD network, it achieves 20 MHz broadband, China Unicom Shanghai branch will build 4000 FDD LTE base stations, which is equal to the number of 3G base stations.
Technically, this is not difficult, which is to upgrade the 2G base stations into 4G , the free frequency will be used by 4G, in this way, it doesn’t do any harm to the subscribers to have 2G base stations transformed into 4G as soon as possible in some cities. However, after the clearance of 2G base stations, it’s not good for 2G subscribers who only make phone calls, because the 2G signal will become weak.