Since April 12, a news that China Unicom has started shutting down its 2G network has been circulating online, and the news also claims that a large number of Unicom 2G users will be affected as a result, causing panic among some users. In practice, however, this panic does not have to exist
Unicom 2G users don't have to panic. In response, China Unicom responded on the official Twitter account on April 13 that China Unicom was indeed advancing 2G network frequency reduction efforts in an orderly manner, mainly by pushing 2G customers to upgrade their consumption to the 4G network
In response to the concerns of 2G users, China Unicom said it would take a variety of preferential measures, such as free replacement of mobile phone cards, gift experience traffic, preferential purchase machines, to assist existing 2G customers to upgrade to 4G network, in the process, the existing 2G customer service is not affected by any
In other words, even unicom 2G users who do not have the will to upgrade do not have to worry about the impact of Unicom's movements at all
By the end of 2017, China Unicom had about 284 million users, of whom the number of 4G users was about 175 million, accounting for 61.62%, while 2G customers accounted for about 2% of the total number of customers, more than 5 million households
From the existing user distribution, the overall Unicom user group of the use of the network situation is very uneven, but 4G has occupied the main position, and 2G has become less and fewer
China Unicom said in response that the launch of the 2G Network frequency reduction measures is based on the 4G mobile network has been fully popularized, 5G is coming to the background, and said that this is the elimination of the communications industry backward capacity of the actual action, to help the mobile communications network "de-inventory" and transformation and upgrading, to further improve the quality and level of unicom service capacity and continuously enhance the sense of consumer gain
The claim that the 2G network was cleared was fermented as early as 2016, but there was not much substantive action. However, as the arrival of 5G approaches, how to deal with the 2G network becomes a matter of being put on the agenda
It has been reported that as early as the end of January 2018, China Unicom began to actively deploy 2G network withdrawal work in many provinces and cities, and asked the market line strictly prohibited the development of 2G business
Even so, China Unicom is unlikely to take a one-size-fits-all approach to shutting down 2G networks altogether for a short time, but is more likely to adopt moderate practices such as encouraging escalation; after all, as a central company that needs to take on the social responsibility of popularizing network communications, it cannot be indifferent to the needs of more than 5 million of users
Shutting down the 2G network is the general trend although the current 2G still has its need to continue to exist, but in the long run, the closure of 2 G is the general trend, unavoidable
In addition, from the point of view of operator maintenance, 2G networks with fewer users are also requiring a lot of cost in maintenance; once closed, this part of the cost can be saved
Looking at the world, the operators of many countries have officially shut down the 2G network, Lei Feng Network here listed as follows: January 2017, the United States AT&T, Canada Bell, Telus and other operators have shut down 2G network; April 2017, M1, Singtel, StarHub three Singapore Operators shut down 2G networks, and the same month, Australia's second-largest telecoms operator, Optus, also shut down the 2G network; at the end of July 2017, another Canadian operator, SaskTel, also announced the closure of the 2G network; and at the end of September 2017, Vodafone Australia closed the 2G network
These operators are able to shut down 2G networks on the one hand, the development of mobile communications technology has reached 5G, and on the other hand, on the basis of their commercial needs. Especially as the global 5G Development has entered the standard setting and pre-deployment phase, the existence of 2G network is indeed much more significant than weakened
It is worth mentioning that after the 2G follow, 3G Chase, 4G parallel development rhythm, China's development in 5G has entered the role of a leader
At present, the three major operators have defined the timetable for the 5G development route, and has been in the relevant cities to carry out the pilot deployment of 5G network, which can understand why the online "off 2G network" is becoming more and more loud
But for China's three largest operators, shutting down 2G altogether is not an easy task. By the end of 2017, China still had 1.57 million 2G base stations, 290 million 2G users, and a large number of IoT devices that relied more on 2G networks; Such a large volume of applications is bound to make the clearance of the 2G network a long-term project
After all, in a sense, the problem of 2G network in our country is not only a commercial problem, but also a livelihood problem
