After ten years’ leap, China’s Internet ＂Butterfly Change＂ has grown.

CCTV News:On February 27th, ten years ago, that is, on February 27th, 2014, the first meeting of the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization was held. The General Secretary of the Supreme Leader first proposed the goal of "striving to build China into a cyber power". In the past ten years, the Internet industry in China has undergone earth-shaking changes, which not only profoundly changed people’s lifestyles, but also promoted social progress and development. In today’s Time and Space Watch, we pay attention to the changes of the Internet in China in the past ten years. From 3G to 5G, what new applications have been promoted by the improvement of data transmission capacity? How far is 6G technology from us? What opportunities has China won in the Internet decade? What are the future challenges?

First of all, let’s look at the leap-forward development of Internet infrastructure and technology in this decade through a set of data. China Internet Development Report (2023) shows that from December 2012 to June 2023, the number of netizens in China increased from 564 million to 1.079 billion, and the Internet penetration rate increased from 42.1% to 76.4%, forming the largest and most vibrant digital society in the world.

In the past ten years, China’s network infrastructure has been improved by leaps and bounds, and the average download rate of broadband networks has increased by nearly 40 times. The mobile communication network has evolved from 3G to 5G, and the largest 5G network in the world has been built. By September 2023, China had built 3.189 million 5G base stations and 737 million 5G mobile phone users. Gigabit optical network has the ability to cover more than 500 million households; The "East-to-West Computing" project has entered the stage of comprehensive construction from the system layout, with a total computing power of 197 trillion floating-point operations per second.

"5G leads" cars and aircraft into "no man’s land"

In the past ten years, the Internet in China has developed rapidly, from 3G to 5G. What new applications have been spawned by the improvement of data transmission capacity? Driverless driving can be said to be the most noteworthy achievement in recent years. Based on the strong coverage of 5G communication, in the past year, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hefei and other places have successively explored the unmanned business practice of autonomous driving, and the construction of autonomous driving demonstration zones has flourished. More and more cars and even manned aircraft are accelerating into the "unmanned land". In Luogang Park, Hefei City, Anhui Province, the newly-built all-space driverless system has given many citizens different travel and play experiences.

This year’s Lantern Festival, a formation of 12 unmanned manned aircraft took off in Luogang Park, Hefei, Anhui Province. These aircrafts were launched in an orderly manner, and their formation patterns were constantly changing, which aroused the interest of many people.

The flight of unmanned aerial vehicle is inseparable from stable transmission and remote control. In the past ten years, China’s network infrastructure construction has been accelerated, from "3G breakthrough" to "4G synchronization" and then to "5G guidance", which not only improved the data transmission capacity, but also expanded the application scenarios, which gave birth to the rapid development of "low-altitude economy".

If there is something flying in the sky, there is something running on the ground. In Luogang Park, Hefei, a stable communication signal allows a mobile phone to solve the problem of traveling and eating. If you are hungry and thirsty, visitors can pick up the goods by scanning the code. However, it is not sent by the takeaway brother, but the drone can be delivered to you through mobile phone operation.

This driverless bus is small and lovely in appearance. There is no cab and steering wheel in the car. As long as the security officer starts the departure button, it can automatically walk and stop along the designated route.

Luogang Park is a full-space unmanned system application demonstration project built by Hefei. Eighteen 4G base stations and 18 5G base stations distributed in Luogang Central Park can meet 105,000 devices’ access at the same time. Here, unmanned application scenarios such as unmanned aircraft, unmanned buses, and unmanned aerial vehicles are operating in an orderly manner.

From 3G to 5G Tower Man’s Network for Ten Years

High-rise buildings are inseparable from a solid foundation, and modern network coverage also needs hardware protection. In 2014, after the Party Central Committee put forward the strategy of strengthening the country by network, in order to help major telecom operators deploy 5G networks quickly at low cost and share new 5G infrastructure to a greater extent, China Tower Company came into being, which provided important support for the network coverage of the three major operators. However, the construction of the tower cannot be separated from the hard work of a builder. Next, let’s follow the reporter’s lens and approach the daily work of the tower builders.

Jiang Tao, the project manager of Shangrao Branch of China Tower, is organizing workers to ship the tower. Just after the Lantern Festival, he took several workers to lingshan scenic spot on the outskirts of Shangrao to start their installation work.

Jiang Tao, the big guy they are installing is a transport drone that has just been installed by China Tower Company in recent years. It can carry up to 200 Jin and can quickly transport some small pieces to their destinations.

After successfully transporting the first batch of components to the destination, the drone quickly flew back to prepare for transportation again. After several round trips, most of the equipment was successfully transported to the destination on the mountain. However, some big guys still need manual work. Although it was noon, the temperature on the mountain was still close to zero degrees Celsius. Facing the hillside with an inclination of nearly 60 degrees, Jiang Tao and others had to stop.

The road is getting narrower and more dangerous. As a last resort, they changed the way of carrying four people side by side to the way of two front and two back and continued to walk to the finish line. Since joining the company ten years ago, Jiang Tao has installed hundreds of communication towers with workers, and witnessed the upgrading of national network communication from 3G to 5G. In the era when there was no drone transportation, they opened countless mountain roads by people carrying mules, and he also thought about giving up when he was physically and mentally exhausted.

Haven’t rest for a while, a few people raised the cabinet and walked on. After more than two hours’ trekking, Jiang Tao and his team finally safely transported the cabinet weighing more than 300 kilograms to the destination at the top of the mountain.

In the past ten years, more than 5,000 communication towers of various types have been built in Shangrao Tower alone, making the network coverage of natural villages in Shangrao City reach over 98%. Through the overall construction of the iron tower, the sharing rate has also increased from 7% to more than 85%, greatly reducing the redundant construction and saving a lot of land resources and industry investment.

Breaking into 6G no man’s land: cool and bitter

In the past decade, China’s mobile communication technology has developed by leaps and bounds from "3G breakthrough" to "4G synchronization" and then to "5G leading". Nowadays, in the evolution of mobile communication every ten years, "6G" communication technology has become a new highland seized by all countries. To what extent has China’s 6G technology progressed? How far is it from us ordinary people? Not long ago, we walked into the Purple Mountain Laboratory in Nanjing, Jiangsu. This research platform has gathered more than 1,000 experts in the industry and teachers and students from universities to jointly challenge the peak of 6G network communication technology research and development.

The reporter walked into the purple mountain laboratory, and all the experimental buildings were busy. Not long ago, the independent research and development of Bayesian learning baseband chip was completed here. At present, they are developing the second generation chip.

The successful development of this independent chip has greatly reduced the equipment cost of the 6G base station. It is the research team led by Zhang Chuan that completed this technological innovation. The research team composed of "post-70s", "post-80s" and "post-90s" has less than 10 full-time staff, but relying on the laboratory platform, more than 20 students from Southeast University have been jointly developed here. There are dozens of R&D teams like this, which are independent and cooperate with each other, focusing on a single problem and forming a joint force.

It is after repeated falls and trial and error that the future research and development of network communication in Zijinshan Laboratory has continuously accumulated phased results. At present, the first version of the baseband circuit automatic generation software system independently developed by Zijinshan Laboratory has been completed, and the research and development of software and hardware technologies around the 5G to 6G network communication iteration is progressing steadily.

The team’s researchers told reporters that the research and development of 6G related technologies is cool, and the homonym of "cool" is "very bitter".

What opportunities did China win? What are the future challenges?

At present, it is generally believed in the industry that the communication capacity of 6G will reach more than 10 times that of 5G. The development from 5G to 6G is not only faster, but more importantly, it is a transformation process from "Internet of Everything" to "Everything is Smart, Digital Twin". 6G will promote more immersive holographic video and realize the linkage among the physical world, the virtual world and the human world. From 3G to 6G, from "Internet of Everything" to "Everything is Smart and Digital Twin", what opportunities have China’s industrial industry and high-tech fields won in the world’s top-level competition with the development of Internet in China for ten years? What achievements have you made? What are the bigger challenges in the future? Listen to Li Xiaodong, vice chairman of internet society of china.

Li Xiaodong said that after ten years’ development, the number of Internet users in China has nearly doubled, and China has the largest number of Internet users in the world, which means that China has the largest 2C market in the world. This market has bred a number of China Internet companies that rank among the top 30 in the world. At present, China’s digital economy ranks second in the world. China leads the world in the scale and capacity of infrastructure. For example, the total number of 5G base stations is the highest in the world, and our IPVideo address resources in the next generation Internet are also the highest in the world. This market scale has prompted Internet companies to accumulate a large number of key development factors such as talents, technology and capital, and have a good foundation. In addition, we have accumulated a lot of data. According to relevant statistics, China’s data resources rank second in the world, accounting for nearly 10% of the world, which lays a very good foundation for future competition. At present, China is actively promoting the integration of the Internet with industries such as industrial manufacturing and agriculture, which will win opportunities for China to participate in global competition. Of course, there are also some challenges. For example, the amount of data resources is the second in the world, but the knowledge density of data needs to be improved. In addition, the phenomenon of "data islands" is still very serious. How to connect "data islands" and bridge the "data gap" is a very serious task. Need to be brave in breaking through. In addition, it is also necessary for China’s high-tech development to pool outstanding talents from all over the world, improve basic research and development, guide capital to invest in high-tech fields, and improve fault-tolerant mechanism and venture capital level.