China’s never-ending-story of transformation might just be set to continue…..indefinitely.
This is because it has now the world’s leader in 5G infrastructure investments – to the tune of $24 billion.
A new report released by globally renowned financial advisor Deloitte, shows that in addition to outspending other nations in wireless communication infrastructure investments, China is deploying technologies more efficiently and quickly achieving higher levels of tower density.
The report entitled “5G – The chance to lead for a decade,” makes it abundantly clear that China is far ahead of other technology giants such as Japan, South Korea and the United States.
“Infrastructure spend and tower density distinguish China’s leap forward and highlight the degree to which China outpaces the United States during these early stages of 5G deployment.
“China is building network site density at an unprecedented rate. China Tower is the leading provider of sites and owns approximately 96 percent of macro towers, small cells, and DAS sites that serve China’s wireless carriers. China Tower has invested $17.7 billion in capital and added more than 350,000 sites since 2015,” the report said.
Deloitte estimates that the equipment necessary to add a carrier in China is about 65 percent the cost of adding a carrier in the United States.
Civil engineering and permitting in China is approximately 15 percent to 20 percent of the costs in theUnited States.
This suggests that the United States would need to spend 2.67 times the amount that China spends to generate an equivalent amount of wireless network capacity.
This estimate can be normalized for China’s population and wireless subscribers versus the United States.
However, even with such normalization, the United States under-spent China in wireless infrastructure by $8 billion to $10 billion per year since 2015.
The report concludes that Innovation in applications that organize lives, reconnect with friends, simplify shopping, or increase our productivity combined with the connected devices, sensors, and data that have made this possible has become the fuel powering our economic leadership.
Here is a video explaining what 5G is all about: