Beijing, Sep 24 (EFE).- China wanted to be the leader in the national deployment of 5G networks and seems to have achieved this as despite the pandemic and potential problems for the country's main supplier Huawei the development of the infrastructure is on schedule.

The Asian country is close to meeting its target of installing 500,000 base stations (antennas) this year after already placing more than 480,000, which is 96 percent of the target Beijing set itself.

This data was made public at the beginning of the month by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which also announced that China has more than 60 million users on these networks and more than 100 million devices connected to them.

Chinese brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo will reduce the prices of their low- and medium-range smartphones with 5G support to about $147 in a bid to compete for their share of the pie, according to the local press.

Guang Yang, from consultancy firm Strategy Analytics, said there is no doubt that China is the "absolute leader" at a global level in terms of network scale, client portfolio and progress in the deployment of standalone 5G or independent 5G, which allows for very low latencies, especially for corporate clients.

The analyst told Efe that the three main Chinese operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, have already met their objectives for this year in terms of 5G network deployment.

"The question now is how far they would like to go beyond that goal," he added.

There have also been difficulties with the project, such as problems finding places to install antennas, as they need to install more than with 4G networks because the new generation operates on a higher frequency band.

Some local governments have allowed them to be placed in public buildings and some, such as Shenzhen in the southeast, have given subsidies of up to $1,473 for each base station installed.

Another issue is electricity consumption and Guang said each 5G base station consumes between three and four times more energy than 4G, which dramatically increases the costs of operators, so the executive is considering reducing electricity costs for these antennas.

The biggest obstacle in 2020 was the Covid-19 pandemic, which practically halted the deployment of the networks during the first months of the year.

Between January and March, lockdowns in China took a toll on the supply chains of equipment vendors and prevented operators from accessing designated antenna sites.

Guang also said that during those months large companies neglected to deploy new networks in favor of ensuring existing ones were able to serve customers confined to their homes, as well as the country's anti-pandemic initiatives.

Since April, when apart from occasional resurgences the country began to bring the contagion under control, deployment tasks were resumed.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in May announced strong investments in new infrastructure such as 5G networks to boost the post-coronavirus economic recovery.

Guang said: "In the short term, investment in 5G networks could boost GDP growth.

"In the medium and long term, 5G could be a key infrastructure for the digital transformation to improve productivity."

The importance of 5G to the country's political elites is by no means limited to this year.

Industry and information technology minister Xiao Yaqing recently stated that China's 14th five-year plan, which will be presented in October and cover the period from 2021 to 2025, will support the promotion of the large-scale deployment of commercial 5G.

Guang warned that although the executive is pushing operators to accelerate the deployment of new generation networks, this has not translated into service revenue growth in the consumer market, so he expects them to focus more on corporate clients by taking advantage of the standalone system.

Apart from the operators and the government, the main players in China's push for 5G networks are technology developers and one name shines above the rest: Huawei.

Guang estimated that the Shenzhen-based technology has taken over around 60 percent of the market share of the country's 5G radio access networks.

Regarding whether United States sanctions on the company have had any effect on its 5G operations in China, he said: "For the time being, the supply of Huawei to Chinese operators has not suffered any impact.

"Being state-owned companies, Chinese operators must support Chinese vendors, and they have no reason not to choose Huawei."

Not everything is rosy for China's telephone companies, as the US is also trying to block their access to semiconductors.

"If they cut off Huawei's supply completely, it would be a very big challenge for Chinese operators, as it would be very difficult for them to find alternatives in the short term," Guang added. EFE

© 2020 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc., source EFE Ingles