Last year’s hot “WeChat killer” 5G news finally ushered in the latest development.
At yesterday’s 5G news high-level forum,Operators revealed that the 5G news nationwide operation platform has been completed and may be trial commercialized nationwide in mid-to-late October.
It has been a year and a half since the three major operators released the 5G messaging white paper and announced the upgrade of traditional SMS.A project done by Sina TechnologyWeiboIn the survey, only 27.2% of netizens expressed expectations for 5G news.
What are the obstacles to the advancement of 5G news? Will it repeat the mistakes of “Fetion”?
Drive high and go low
The three major operators jointly announced that mainstream mobile phone manufacturers Huami Ov have expressed their support. 5G news has once become a topic of great concern to users and the industry in 2020.
According to the operator’s description at the time, for individual users, 5G messaging provides point-to-point messaging and group chat services, and supports multiple forms such as text, pictures, audio and video. Users can send and receive 5G messages from other mobile phone users without downloading the App or adding friends.
For industry users, 5G messaging can realize “message as a service”. Users can directly perform various 5G application services such as payment and recharge, ticket ordering, hotel reservation, logistics query, catering reservations, and takeaway orders in the message window.
If this imagination can be realized, 5G will not only realize the instant messaging function of WeChat, but also replace the functions of some life service apps, and unify the traffic portal into SMS.
But the ideal is beautiful, the reality is very skinny… The 5G news debut is the peak, and it has fallen all the way ever since. Under the expectation of users, operators have only carried out partial trials in certain areas, but have not been able to roll out on a large scale.
A report on 5G news done by Sina TechnologyWeiboIn the survey, the highest proportion is “What is 5G news”, accounting for 35.3%. This means that in the long wait, the enthusiasm of ordinary users is no longer; at the same time, because the corresponding services are not launched in time, users have not been able to experience it personally, and the perception of 5G news is also very few.
Only 21.5% of 5G news are still expected; 23.8% of users directly stated that they don’t expect 5G news, and WeChat is enough; and 19.3% of users said they wait and see to see if there will be charges.
Benefit distribution becomes a problem
Operators rarely join forces, but why is the progress so slow?
Fu Guoqiang, deputy head of the 5G messaging working group of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said frankly that the promotion of 5G messaging has problems in industrial coordination and pilot demonstrations.
To realize the commercial use of 5G messages, the first step is to realize interconnection and interoperability at the level of the three major operators. He pointed out earlier,The collaboration built by operators is not enough, because 5G news advertises end-to-end reachability. He suggested that operators can unify development and construction steps to give everyone a unified and undifferentiated message experience.
due toChina UnicomandChina TelecomCo-construction and sharing cooperation has been reached on 5G, and the two parties can achieve synergy on the progress of 5G news. Both companies have stated that they will trial commercial use in mid-to-late October or the fourth quarter of this year; andChina MobileIt has its own rhythm. For example, the 5G messaging app was launched separately in May 2020, and then it was suddenly removed.
In addition, the support of terminal enterprises for 5G news needs to be strengthened, and the mode of profit division needs to be innovated.
At the 5G news high-level forum,China MobileSheng Lingzhi, deputy general manager of the important customer center of the Beijing company, said that during the promotion of 5G news, the feedback from corporate customers was that the terminal was not properly adapted.
China UnicomHuang Changjian, deputy general manager of the product center, said that ZTE, Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi, etc. are all good. He also called on Huawei that although the 5G chips of Huawei mobile phones are affected, he still hopes to jointly increase the scale of 5G news on the terminal;China TelecomDu Chengxin, general manager of the 5G Message Operation Department of the Value-Added Service Operation Center, also expressed his opinion, “Calling on Huawei to emancipate its mind and provide terminal support.”
From the current situation,Due to the impact of chip supply, Huawei’s mobile phone support progress in 5G news has obviously also been affected to a certain extent.On the one hand, Huawei has been unable to launch new 5G mobile phones; on the other hand, Huawei’s current focus is to promote the upgrading of its existing mobile phone users from the Android system to the Hongmeng system.
Of course, it is not just Huawei. It is understandable that mobile phone manufacturers have concerns about supporting 5G news.
The idea of 5G messaging is to use mobile phone numbers as a unified account system, which means that operators will control the flow of traffic, which undoubtedly has a conflict of interest with mobile phone manufacturers.
for exampleThe distribution channels of application stores can bring a large amount of revenue sharing to mobile phone manufacturers every year; in scenarios such as games and payments, mobile phone manufacturers also have their own accounts and user systems, and will not be willing to hand them over to operators.
In fact, it’s harder to getApple. In April 2020, the 5G news white paper was just released. At that time, people familiar with the matter said that 5G news Android phones can be natively supported without downloading an App.butWhether iOS phones can natively support it depends onAppleCompany policy.
China MobileI tried a variety of methods, such as the previous 5G messaging app, just toAppleMobile phone users launched; before this, China Mobile Internet company also revealed the latest solution to this problem. It has developed a “SMS applet” for Apple mobile phones. Based on the “SMS + authentication + H5 applet” method, one more step can indirectly achieve full mobile phone coverage of 5G messages and meet the experience needs of Apple users for 5G messages.
How to define the business model?
When talking about the biggest challenge facing the commercialization of 5G messaging, Sheng Lingzhi, deputy general manager of China Mobile Beijing’s important customer center, said that in business, the business model of 5G messaging determines whether it can be launched on a large scale.
“Terminals and platforms are very important, and a good business model is needed to attract operators and industry customers.” He said, “SMS has a good business model. What is the business model of 5G messaging?”
The current operator’s charging standard for personal short message service is 0.1 yuan/piece. Although personal short message service has gradually declined in recent years, the enterprise short message service has also contributed to the growth of overall short message service volume and revenue to a certain extent.
andAfter the traditional SMS is upgraded to 5G messaging, will the current business model of pay-per-item continue to be used? This is still unknown.
From the point of view of C-end users, the continuation of the pay-as-you-go model obviously does not work. “If it’s a charge by item, why should I use 5G messaging? Isn’t it good to use WeChat?” A netizen commented.
Qin Fei, dean of Vivo Communication Research Institute, once told Sina Technology that although 5G news has a lot of room for imagination, the billing model has not yet been clear. He suggested that operators should bill in the form of traffic, “If it is changed to 0.15 yuan, it may be difficult to develop.”
However, changing to the flow accounting mode means that operators have to give up the revenue of traditional SMS services, which is tens of billions of dollars a year, depending on whether the operators have the determination to break their arms.
For business users, the business model is also a very critical issue.Before 5G news has been commercialized and the number of users has not increased, it is also facing internal challenges to invest human and financial resources in 5G news.
China TelecomDu Chengxin, general manager of the 5G message operation department of the value-added business operation center, believes that 5G messages may be more attractive to specific industries, such as the financial industry. Many financial apps are used very frequently by users, and may not be used several times a year, but The user base is very large, this kind of news is more suitable for using 5G news, which can reduce the cost of App development and promotion; in addition, 5G news is also a great opportunity for the brand building of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Will you repeat the mistakes of Fetion?
Although the current 5G news has not yet been fully commercialized, two extreme voices have already appeared.
Some people believe that 5G messaging may be the first killer application of 5G, and it is even expected to fight WeChat in certain scenarios; but there are also opinions that operators have tried many times on Internet services, such as Fetion, Yixin, etc. , But they all ended in failure due to deficiencies in concepts and business operations.
China UnicomHuang Changjian, deputy general manager of the product center, said that as long as the industry chain works with one heart, the 5G news will definitely be well done. “5G news is a good channel at the moment, and both the head and the small and medium-sized enterprises are very good. The future 5G news must be the outlet.” He said.
ZTE is also very positive about 5G news. ZTE technology spokesperson and SDN/NFV chief scientist Tu Jiashun said that ZTE has released 14 devices that support 5G news, covering thousands of yuan phones and flagship phones.While stillChina Telecom、China UnicomThe channel market promises to support the upgrade of stock terminals. “With 5G news, there will be no need to install so many apps on mobile phones in the future, the mobile phones will be lighter, and there will be no need to change phones frequently.”
However, Tao Xujun, director of the Digital Competence Center of Nomura Research Institute, holds a different view. He told Sina Technology that his long-standing view is that 5G news cannot be a killer application.
In his opinion, first, 5G messaging does not have a generational difference advantage or actually no advantage over WeChat-like tools; second, interconnection issues require a lot of work; third, operators also realize that they can’t find a strong one. The monetization model can be as strong as the original SMS. “Some operators are actually not active anymore.”
However, in any case, the commercialization of 5G news finally has a relatively clear timetable. We also look forward to the continuous improvement of 5G news in the commercial trial in mid-to-late October, bringing more innovative experiences to users and the industry.
As Li Dan, secretary-general of the China Communications Enterprise Information Association, said, the construction of 5G news is not an operator’s decision. Terminal companies and vertical industries need to participate together. “If 5G news is good or not, the industry chain has the final say, and users have the final say. If 5G news is to develop well, it must be a chorus.” He said.
(Source: Sina Technology)
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