5G has been commercially available for five years, and 332 operators in 116 countries and regions currently offer 5G services. 5G enables connectivity for all things to empower individuals, homes, and vertical industries. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, there will be more than 2 billion 5G connections and over 30,000 private 5G networks for industries.

2024 marks the commercial launch of 5G-A and the start of the 5G-A era. Leading operators around the world have released their 5G-A strategies. 5G-A is enhancing services, technology, and business, and is creating new business value by injecting momentum into four key areas: services, user experience, networks, and operations.

Core networks powered by native intelligence will be a prominent feature of mobile networks in the 5G-A era. Service intelligence enables operators to create key gateways to services; network intelligence can help reshape business models; and operational intelligence helps re-create the framework of cloud-based infrastructure O&M. Together, these forms of intelligence will allow operators to implement network transformation strategies by increasing the number of revenue sources, reducing expenditure, and improving user experience.

The evolution from 5G core to 5G-A core not only represents technological progress, but also brings the telecom industry one step closer to being able to deliver intelligent, efficient, and personalized services.

Intelligent calling: A key gateway to B2C services and new growth

Driven by both new technologies and market demand, the calling business is evolving into an intelligent assistant and service platform.

First, the visualized voice calling service powered by AI-generated content (AIGC) is transforming the call interface. During an average 90-second phone call, users no long see a blank screen, but one that can display personalized content. Second, calls can serve as intelligent assistants powered by network intelligence. Users can enjoy efficient multimodal communications with features like auto transcription and real-time translation services. Third, the calling service is becoming a platform offering diverse services which can be accessed by dialing. Users can dial numbers to query and request telecom services, book a restaurant, or remotely access car insurance loss assessment services, without installing any apps. Calling will create new value for operators by enabling platform operations and this will unlock new growth potential.

New Calling saw large-scale deployment and commercial adoption in China in 2023. In the same year, it was verified in Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia Pacific, and it is expected to be commercially adopted in these regions in 2024. In fact, many leading operators have already completed their commercial trials. New Calling is bound to take the world by storm and see widespread adoption in the near future.

Upgrade in video content generates explosive traffic growth

Video services are becoming more diversified, high-definition, and social. Demands for differentiated experiences are increasing as more people access video services through a wider range of devices. Short-form video applications have taken off all around the world and are used by a vast number of people on a daily basis. By December 2023, there were 1.55 billion short-form video accounts in China.

As video creation becomes faster and videos become more high-definition, 10 gigabit speeds are becoming essential. The emergence of AIGC and many new models of XR devices are increasing the diversity of video applications. Immersive applications are expected to become a staple of everyday life. This requires networks to support 10 Gbps rates and 20 ms latency. Video services are also being increasingly integrated with social networking features. Short-form video platforms that are powered by AI can analyze users' networking behavior and provide more accurate recommendations like interest-based follower recommendations and new ways of interacting, such as real-time interactive comments.

Enhanced experiences for different users and services

5G-A's enhanced air interface capabilities increases user-perceived speeds from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps.

Statistics show that China has over 150 million registered livestreaming users, including 95 million active users, and this number continues to grow at a rate of more than 10% annually. Services like cloud gaming and online conferencing are also developing rapidly. Considering how fast operators' service assurance packages are evolving, high-value users are very willing to pay for deterministic experiences. Differentiated experience monetization has already been recognized as a trend in the market. This market could be worth more than CNY10 billion. It also offers operators the opportunity to develop new operation models that go beyond data traffic monetization.

China Mobile's 5G-A aims to enhance basic network experiences and improve data rates several-fold by using the three-component carrier (3CC) aggregation capability. Network-service collaboration is expected to enable the operator's services and networks to be aware of each other by the end of 2024. Experience differentiation capabilities are expected to become available in 2025 so that the operator can deliver guaranteed experiences.

Experience monetization with an intelligent 5G-A core network

The first batch of China Mobile's 5G-A demonstration service centers will be launched in 100 cities across China. In the future, all areas will be covered by 5G-A, multi-metric 5G-A packages will be customizable, and tiered-assurance 5G-A applications will be available. China Mobile will continue working with partners to develop 100 benchmark 5G-A industry applications by the end of the year to enable production and operations in a variety of industries.

The intelligent 5G-A core network enables the intelligent connectivity of everything by integrating intelligence and distributed gateways. The 5G-A core network, powered by native intelligence, enables operator services in three areas.

First, service intelligence is the foundation and driver of New Calling. The purpose of New Calling is to make calls more interesting, informative, and useful, thereby making the dialing pad a gateway to engaging and easy-touse operator services.

In 2023, China Mobile launched a number of new services, including real-time translation, fun calling, visualized voice calling, and AI transcription. In just two months, the number of New Calling users in one province in China had increased by more than 1 million, and many of these new users were using paid services. New Calling services make communication more efficient and fun for users, while increasing data traffic and revenue for operators.

The New Calling platform is also expanding to the B2B market and hosting businesses and more third-party partners. In May 2024, China Mobile Jiangsu and Huawei jointly launched a number of New Calling-Advanced services, such as visualized voice calling+, AI customer service, and real-time voice-driven digital humans. These new applications make B2C and B2B calling services more engaging and intelligent, and improve user experience. With consistently high definition, visualized interactions, and higher efficiency, these applications will pave new pathways to success for the calling ecosystem.

50,000 private 5G and 5G-A networks are expected to be established in the B2B market, and 5G- and 5G-A-powered factories are predicted to account for more than 25% of all factories. The new MEC capabilities will drive deeper and more widespread industry digitalization. Connectivity services will also expand from workshops to production lines, and ultimately to all scenarios, enabling operators to gain access to business opportunities in various industries.

Second, network intelligence focuses on delivering differentiated user experience. Packages include experience-based benefits to meet the experience requirements of specific users, services, and scenarios. For specific users, such as subscribers to China Mobile's GoTone diamond packages, experience-based benefits are offered by default to guarantee user experience for all services and scenarios. Specific service assurance packages are available for services such as livestreaming and office services. Instant messaging assurance packages are available for specific scenarios, such as travel on high-speed trains and festivals.

The intelligent network experience assurance capabilities can overcome three common challenges that come with traditional experience monetization practices: the inability to accurately evaluate experience, unrefined assurance methods (static assurance), and unperceivable assurance. An intelligent core network can accurately evaluate user experience in real time and provide dynamic assurance accordingly. When assurance is being provided, users can see a message to this effect on their screens. Once the assurance provision ends, an experience assurance report is sent to the user by SMS. As a result, user experiences can be perceived, optimized, and monetized.

Network intelligence enables operators to go from traditional traffic monetization to experience monetization. Operators can establish an experience-based benefit market and release differentiated experience packages to monetize user experience. This is not just about technological innovation, but also about transforming operators' business models.

Third, operational intelligence is the key to operating communications networks efficiently. It also drives the automation and intelligentization of operations and maintenance. When based on telecom foundation models, operational intelligence can enable cloud-based O&M. Role-oriented copilots, which help improve staff efficiency through professional Q&A and assisted O&M, and scenario-oriented agents that can understand user intentions and automatically orchestrate tasks to fix problems in complex scenarios are also available. At a Chinese operator's proof of concept (POC) pilot site, such intelligent capabilities are used to assist with ticket closure. 80% of tickets can be handled and closed without manual assistance from staff, and this saves the operator 750 person-days per month.

Intelligent 5G-A core: unlocking new business opportunities for operators

The evolution from 5G core to 5G-A core not only represents technological progress, but also brings the telecom industry one step closer to being able to deliver intelligent, efficient, and personalized services. The adoption and further development of 5G-A core network technology will make future telecom networks more intelligent, reliable, and efficient, create new user experiences, and cultivate new business models and growth opportunities for operators.