Huawei wins a massive $1 billion 5G telecom re-farming order

Huawei has won a massive 5G telecom re-farming order from the largest Chinese telecom company – China Telecom and it is worth over $1 billion.

In August this year, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology allowed China Telecom to re-farm the 800MHz frequency band used for 2G, 3G, and 4G systems for 5G public mobile communication systems.

The evaluation committee of China Telecom for the 800MHz frequency wireless network project has been completed. Now, the evaluation has been allotted to each bidder based on the standard requirement procedure.

According to the decision, Huawei, ZTE, Nokia, Ericsson, and Datang Mobile have been shortlisted from the bidding results. Among these, Huawei and ZTE won the first and second largest bidding amounts respectively.

1. Huawei won bidding at a bid price of RMB 7,421,109,888 ($1,01,86,13,602)
2. ZTE comes second at RMB 7,421,110,243 ($1,01,86,13,651)
3. Nokia won a bid at RMB 5,390,216,528 ($73,98,55,353)
4. Ericsson has the fourth place with a bid price of RMB 5,998,014,540 ($82,32,81,057)
5. Fifth comes Datang Mobile Communication Equipment with bid price of RMB 5,880,114,938 ($80,70,98,284).

According to the past centralized procurement plan, the main target of this project includes centralized procurement of 5G-mobile base stations based on 800MHz NR base stations. It’s estimated that the entire scope covers about 250,000 base stations in total.

What is Re-Farming?

Spectrum re-forming or reforming in the telecom world is conducted to repurpose spectrum bands to more efficient technologies or new services.

For example, a telecom service provider might be using the 900MHz band to provide 2G services. However, with the shifting trend in demand for telecom services, the provider may want to free some of this 900MHz spectrum for LTE services. This entire process of relocating the spectrum for different uses is known as re-refarming.

Why 800MHz?

I don’t have a specific answer to why China Telecom is choosing this frequency but there are some answers on the internet that we can understand in brief.

The 800MHz frequency band has wide coverage and low signal loss. The range also has high penetration capability such as passing through strong obstacles including buildings.

This band is cost-effective and has a low deployment cost as compared to the high-frequency band. On the other hand, it is suitable for both rural and remote areas.

A Big Win:

Winning this $1 billion 5G re-farming order is a massive victory for Huawei and this will help the company to operate more into the telecom business.

(via)