Exploring the 5G Business Hall of China Radio and Television: Section 192 has not been opened to the public, and the store renovation still needs to be improved

The fourth largest operator is here! Three years after obtaining a 5G commercial license, China Radio and Television held a 5G network service launch ceremony on June 27, announcing that Section 192 will be officially released to the public.

At present, China Radio and Television has officially launched the 10099 official website, the website is www.10099.com.cn, the customer service phone number is 10099, and the 4G and 5G package charging standards have been launched.

“China Radio and Television 5G 192 Number Release! Official website online: 5G package 118 yuan to 588 yuan, 100+ App exclusive traffic”

During the visit of Sohu Technology, it was found that the current 5G service of China Radio and Television is mainly for internal employees and friendly users. In addition, some of the offline business halls of Beijing Radio and Television have not yet installed new doors, and the signboard is “Gehua Cable”, and the construction of offline channel stores has yet to be improved.

Holding the 700MHz golden frequency band, China Radio and Television provides users with communication services by “holding the thighs”, jointly building and sharing the 700MHz 5G network with China Mobile, and renting China Mobile’s 2.6GHz network.Xiang Ligang, a communications analyst, told Sohu Technology that the China Radio and Television Network is actually based on China Mobile, with only a portion of its resources, so there must be no problem with the network quality.

From an industry point of view, with the entry of China Radio and Television, will the “three pillars” pattern of the communication service market be broken? Many people in the industry hold a pessimistic view on this, “The timing of China Radio and Television’s entry is relatively late, and the possibility of changing the industry structure is very small.”

Exploring the offline business hall of Beijing Radio and Television

As the main body of China Radio and Television’s 5G business operation in Beijing, Gehua Cable was mainly responsible for the construction and management of Beijing’s cable radio and television network, and is currently promoting Beijing Radio and Television’s 5G commercial account distribution.

On June 28, Sohu Technology came to a Gehua cable business hall in Haidian District, Beijing, and saw posters and billboards related to Radio and Television 5G hanging in the store.

However, almost no one inquired about China Radio and Television’s 5G business in this business hall, and most of them were dealing with Gehua Cable’s broadband and TV business.

“At present, its 5G service has just started the trial commercial stage, and it is only for internal employees and friendly users. It has not been promoted to the public.” The staff of the business hall told Sohu Technology that it is not clear when it will be able to handle it, and it will have to wait for the official Notice.

The 10099 human customer service said that from June 27 to July 3 is the trial commercial stage, and the official commercial time has not yet been notified.

China Radio and Television told Sohu Technology that there will be a trial commercial period after the launch of the network, mainly for internal employees and friendly users, and the network operation needs to be verified before it will be officially commercialized.

However, the business hall is not yet fully ready to provide users with 5G services of China Radio and Television. On the one hand, there is no information in the store to introduce business details such as number selection and packages. On the other hand, the business hall has not yet installed a new door, and the store sign is still “Gehua Cable”. To a certain extent, this hinders users from understanding China Radio and Television’s new business, because not all users know the relationship between China Radio and Television and Gehua Cable.

At the beginning of June, Gehua Cable said that in accordance with the requirements of China Radio and Television, the doors of all business halls (service stations) of Gehua Cable have been standardized and designed, and some business halls have not yet installed new doors due to the impact of the epidemic.

(China Radio and Television Gehua Cable Xiaojieqiao Flagship Business Hall)

In addition, users will also have certain difficulties when they want to find the location of the offline business hall of China Radio and Cable. Taking Beijing as an example, when Sohu Technology searches for “China Radio and Television” on Baidu Maps, Dianping and other apps, it is difficult to find offline business hall information, and it still needs to search for “Gehua Cable”.

It can be seen that China Radio and Television has not yet fully prepared for the opening of 5G services to the public, and channel construction and other aspects still need to be improved.

Package discounts are small

On June 27, China Radio and Television officially launched the 10099 official website and announced the package tariffs.

It is understood that China Radio and Television 192 packages are divided into two types, one is the 4G wonderful package, the package price is 38-68 yuan / month. The other is the 5G wonderful package, the package price is 118-588 yuan / month.

Compared with the tariffs of the other three operators, the threshold price of China Radio and Television’s 5G package is about 10 yuan lower than that of China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, but the content of voice and data packages is different.

Communication analyst Fu Liang commented that the three major operators will adopt fixed-line mobile bundling contracts, discount sales of standard packages, and local launch of packages with more favorable tariffs. Therefore, the preferential treatment of radio and television packages is not strong and attractive.

Some netizens said that the price of this package is not cheap. “The Shanghai Mobile I use is 118 yuan a month, including 500 minutes of calls, 80G data and 200M broadband.”

“Compared with foreign operators who have entered the market, the discount of China’s radio and television packages is not very large.” Yang Guang, director of the StrategyAnalytics service provider team, told Sohu Technology that the French operator free has launched ultra-low-cost unlimited packages, and Japan’s Rakuten has launched the top 300 packages. 10,000 users are free of one-year phone bills.

Although the package tariffs are not cheap, one of the major advantages of the radio and television is that the 192th section is a brand-new section with more “beautiful numbers” available. The official website shows that China Radio and Television has launched a variety of options such as three consecutive numbers, sequential numbers, and love numbers.

When Sohu Technology tried to purchase on the 10099 official website and the applet of the China Radio and Television Business Hall, it showed that the number selection system was still being upgraded, and it was not yet possible to select the number to purchase. However, some users told Sohu Technology that they bought the birthday number on June 27 and did not make an appointment in advance. Some netizens complained on social networking sites, “I placed an order number in the China Radio and Television applet, but after the payment was successful, the order could not be found. The customer service feedback that because it has not been officially commercialized, the express information can only be inquired in the Jingdong Express applet.”

In terms of terminals, as of June 29, a total of 136 terminals have been upgraded recently, and most of them completed the adaptation to the China Radio and Television Mobile Network from June to August this year.

Is the network quality guaranteed?

As a new entrant in the industry, China Radio and Television holds the 700MHz golden frequency band and adopts cooperation with China Mobile to provide communication services, which can save network construction costs on the one hand, and facilitate rapid business development on the other hand.

It is understood that China Radio and Television not only builds and shares a 700MHz 5G network with China Mobile, but also leases China Mobile’s 4G and 5G networks in the 2.6GHz frequency band. China Radio and Television needs to pay China Mobile a 700MHz wireless network operation and maintenance fee, a 700MHz transmission bearer network usage fee, and a 4G/5G network usage fee.

Xiang Ligang believes that there is no problem with the network quality of China Radio and Television, because China Radio and Television Network is actually based on China Mobile, only a part of the resources, and China Mobile has supported a large number of users.

Yang Guang believes that the overall user experience of China’s radio and television users can be guaranteed. The 700MHz network has just started construction, and the coverage is not so perfect. If there is no 700MHz signal in the area where the radio and television users are located, they can switch to the mobile 2.6GHz network.

“China Mobile is the largest operator in China. Radio and television cooperates with China Mobile, and the network quality is definitely good. In addition, 700MHz is a low frequency band, which has better coverage. In remote areas, or relatively deep indoors (such as urban office buildings), the signal is better. Relatively In the case of dense urban areas and many users, because the 700MHz bandwidth is relatively narrow and the capacity is relatively limited, the user experience will be relatively poor.”

Since some networks of China Radio and Television are “dependent” on China Mobile, in extreme network scenarios such as subways and stadiums, will China Mobile give priority to ensuring its own user experience? Xiang Ligang believes that the two sides are a cooperative relationship, and the possibility of different treatment is small. And the operation is very difficult, it is necessary to identify China Radio and Television users in the system, and it is also necessary to provide priority treatment to China Mobile users.

From an industry perspective, the cooperation model between radio, television and mobile has no precedent in China, but it is very common in the international market. Due to the high cost of capital and time invested in the construction of communication base stations, new operators often sign cooperation agreements with mature operators when they enter the market. For example, when the Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten first entered the operator business, it chose to cooperate with KDDI, the second-ranked telecom giant in Japan, and leased the latter’s communication equipment to quickly start the business.

In Xiang Ligang’s view, it is unlikely that China Radio and Television will build its own network in the future. “It costs about 300 billion yuan to build a network independently. The construction cost is very high, and there will be repeated construction and waste. At present, the state is promoting operators to build and share together.”

Can it break the pattern of “three pillars” in the communications industry?

China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile have been in a “three-legged” situation for many years. As a new entrant, has China Radio and Power become a “catfish” stirring the mobile communication market? Is it possible to form a pattern of “four parts of the world” in the future?

At present, the domestic mobile communication service market is highly saturated and the competition is fierce. It is understood that the number of mobile phone users has exceeded 1.6 billion, while the total domestic population is 1.4 billion. “The timing of China Radio and Television’s entry is relatively late.” Yang Guang believes that there is not much growth in the mobile communication service market at present, and China Radio and Television mainly aims at the second card (secondary card) of users.

In the 5G market, all three major operators launched their business in 2019. The latest data shows that the total number of 5G package users in my country is close to 900 million, and the 5G penetration rate of China Telecom and China Mobile has exceeded 50%. Yang Guang said that China Radio and Television did not catch up with the first wave of 4G users shifting to 5G, and behind them were more difficult “hard bones”.

In Xiang Ligang’s view, China Radio and Television is facing a very cruel market environment, with very high technical requirements. It is not easy for new operators to survive, and the possibility of changing the industry structure is very small.

When it comes to “competing on the same stage” with the other three major operators, the advantages of China Radio and Television are not obvious. Xiang Ligang believes that China Radio and Television has no self-built network, no operating experience, no nationwide service system, and no core competencies among operators. Yang Guang pointed out that the service system, sales system, brand building, talent and technology accumulation of radio and television are relatively poor, and the integration of the national network has not been fully completed.

Different from the fact that the power of communication operators has been reverted to the headquarters of the group, the cable television networks across the country have always been in a state of “separation of princes”, and governments at all levels manage radio and television companies, TV stations, and cable television network companies at all levels.

In 2020, China Radio and Television Network Co., Ltd. was officially unveiled, basically completing the integration of non-listed provincial cable TV network companies. Lv Jianjie, deputy general manager of China Radio and Television, said that only after the merger of all listed companies is completed, the capital-level integration of “one network across the country” will be officially completed.

Due to the complex ownership of the ownership of radio and television in various places, the process of integration is not easy. The loose organizational structure has affected the operation efficiency of China Radio and Television to a certain extent. China Radio and Television stated on May 17 that it would officially operate Section 192, but it has not yet released the number to the public.

The operating entities with different names in various places have affected the public’s perception of China’s radio and television brands. For example, when users see the “Gehua Cable” store, they do not necessarily know that this is Beijing Radio and Television.

Only when China Radio and Television really establishes an operation and management system of “unified construction, unified management, unified standards, and unified brand”, can it play a better role in market competition.

Yang Guang believes that it is difficult for China Radio and Television to build a “one network across the country” similar to other operators. In fact, it has been integrated for several years. Whether from the perspective of administrative management or capital integration, it will take a lot of time and energy.