Shenzhen becomes first Chinese city to finish full-scale 5G deployment

PanARMENIAN.Net - Shenzhen, a city in South China's Guangdong Province known as the "new Silicon Valley" for its role as a base for Chinese high-tech companies, announced Monday, August 17 that it has finished its 5G network deployment.

This makes it the first city in China to offer the next generation of wireless networking at full scale, Global Times reports.

The city had deployed more than 46,000 5G base stations as of Friday, Mayor Chen Rugui said during an industry event Monday. Industry observers said that the number of 5G base stations in the city puts its 5G deployment on par with the entire European continent.

China and South Korea are the global frontrunners when it comes to 5G deployment, while the US has fallen behind, Wang Zhiqin, deputy director of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), said at the event.

As of the end of June, China had deployed more than 410,000 5G base stations across the country, and it will roll out 500,000 new ones by the end of 2020, a CAICT report said. As of the end of July, the total number of 5G users in China had surpassed 88 million, accounting for more than 80 percent of the global 5G user base and ranking the country No.1.