China Unicom has Over 10 Thousand Private 5G Networks

When it comes to 5G private networks, China is in a league of its own. In a recent case study from Mobile World Live, China Unicom Global was said to have 10,560 private 5G networks to various enterprises, up from 4,818 a year earlier. It is one of the world’s largest operators, claiming 271 million 5G subscribers and 540 million IoT connections in China. This is just one of the three big Chinese operators. Not sure how many private 5G networks are there in total in China. 

Having said that, the private 5G networks in China are hybrid private networks rather than dedicated or standalone ones. This is because in China there is no dedicated spectrum that has been set aside for private networks. This limits the innovation and opportunities for small vendors, system integrators and solution providers. A quick video tutorial explaining the types of private networks is available here

Huawei and China Unicom have also produced a case studies paper looking at many different deployments. You can find them here.

The video below shows couple of use 5G enterprise use cases from China Unicom:

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