At the industry conference held recently, Ma Hongbing, chief expert of wireless technology at China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute, said operators should consider constructing the future-oriented network infrastructure architecture at present as 5G needs a network architecture which was operated, deployed and proceeded uniformly and could be extended and upgraded. 5G network will be an end-to-end network instead of a single network based on the core networks.
Therefore, China Unicom and other corporations including Huawei jointly issued CUBE-Net 2.0--a new generation of network architecture. As we know,the former network evolution from 2G to 3G or from 3G to 4G mainly involved introduction of new technologies and new eqipments but the network architecture involved no fundamental changes. However, CUBE-Net 2.0 is an overall and deeper revolution at the level of network “Gene”.
The new network architecture focuses on technology researches including SDN/NFV, big data and cloud computing and China Unicom hopes to support future 5G implementation through this with all its strength.
In terms of 5G spectrum planning, Ma Hongbing said that the industry pays great attention to the frequency bands below 6GHz now but lacked concern about frequency bands above 6GHz which should be added now. He also noted that China Unicom would construct 5G live pavilions in 2017 and conduct 5G laboratory tests in 2018.
With regard to the 5G deployment, Ma Hongbing said,” It depends on the government’s arrangements”. He noted that 5G promoting projects differed among operators, and 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G would coexist in the future. China Unicom is willing to join more cooperation on development with China Mobile and China Telecom, discussing topics such as spectrum sharing.