Ten landmark regions in Shanghai, like Wukang Mansion and the Bund, now boast 5G Advanced (5G-A) networks, offering 10 times faster Internet access than current 5G services, telecom carrier China Unicom said on Wednesday.
The 10 5G-A-ready sites also include Jing’an Temple, Wujiaochang, the Formula 1 race venue in suburban Jiading District, the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) in suburban Qingpu District and Hongqiao Railway Station. Special “5GA” connection signals will be displayed on users screen of latest smartphones (Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Magic), instead of “5G” signals.
5G-A is a transition technology between 5G and 6G, featuring peak download speed of 10 Gbps, or gigabytes per second, 10 times higher compared with current 5G services.
Zhu Shenshen / SHINE
China Unicom on Wednesday announced a batch of upgrades covering 5G-A networks in Shanghai.
Besides speed improvement, 5G-A features surging industrial demand such as autonomous driving, 3D and AR/VR and artificial intelligence applications, and better supports new devices like Apple Vision Pro and Metaverse applications, thanks to its low latency, experts said.
China Unicom plans to set up more than 1,000 5G-A-ready sites in Shanghai, helping the city to accelerate digital transformation and smart city construction.
The carrier also announced a batch of upgrades for 5G, consumer-oriented AI and family broadband services, and a cooperation deal with tech giant Huawei on smart home.
Rival carriers China Telecom and China Mobile will announce their new upgrades on Thursday, ahead of World Telecommunications Day which falls on Friday.