On the press conference of the China Unicom new generation network architecture white paper that held on September 22nd, the general manager of China Unicom Lu Yimin announced that China Unicom has comprehensively accelerated 4G network construction to create a fine-quality 4G network, it has speeded up the deployments of carrier aggregation (CA) and VoLTE and actively optimized the network layout to improve the 4G network competitiveness.
The first is to comprehensively expand the 4G network coverage, it’s expected that the number of China Unicom’s 4G base stations will reach 500,000 by the end of this year, at that time, the total number of its 4G and 3G base stations will exceed 1.2 million, with the population coverage close to 95%. At present, China Unicom is comprehensively promoting the construction of 4G network, and the key point is to improve the depth of coverage on the basis of seamless coverage in urban areas, county towns and developed rural towns and accelerates the 4G network wide coverage construction in rural regions. In 2016, the population coverage of China Unicom’s 4G network will exceed 90%.
The second is to accelerate the deployment of 4G+ in the whole network and improve the network's peak rate to 300Mbps. In 2016, China Unicom will launch commercial triple-CA services and improve the peak rate to 330Mbps. In the later stage, it will actively promote scale deployments of the triple-CA, tetrad-CA, multi-CA and 4G-WiFi aggregation. At the same time, China Unicom will also actively promote the VoLTE and RCS trials and deployments and the whole network will support HD voice in 2015. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other cities that fit the VoLTE pre-commercial conditions, China Unicom will provide HD voice and HD video call services in the 4G network.
The third is to improve the resources guaranteeing in 4G network construction. In order to ensure the implementation of the 4G network construction strategy, China Unicom has comprehensively started making of the 2016-2018 network investment plan and strengthened the reasonable allocation of relevant resources, China Unicom has stopped 3G network scale expansion in this year, and will strictly control the 3G network expansion in LTE coverage areas and mainly invest the resources to 4G network construction.
Lu Yimin said, in the construction of fixed broadband network, the key point is to accelerate the pace of upgrading work of the optical fiber network and speed up the construction of “full-optical network”. On September 22nd, Shandong became China Unicom's first “full-optical network” province in China and 39 domestic cities have built the “full-optical networks”.10 provinces in Northern China of China Unicom will all achieve “full optical network" by 2016.