A visitor tries out 5G services at an experience center in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province. The center, at the Dongfangzhimen station of Suzhou Rail's line 1, is the first in the province to offer wireless networking based on China Mobile (Suzhou)'s 5G service. Suzhou plans to launch commercial 5G services by the end of this year. Photo: VCG

The nation's telecoms industry kicked off official 5G construction within a week after receiving commercial licenses issued by the government, and the era of 5G is fast approaching, experts said on Thursday.

China Mobile, the world's largest telecom operator by subscribers, has announced a 5G-related procurement plan of 38.72 billion yuan ($5.6 billion). It is the nation's first 5G-related purchase plan after telecoms giants received their commercial licenses on June 6, according to the Shanghai Securities News on Thursday.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued 5G licenses to China Mobile, China Union, China Telecom and China Broadcast Network. 

"The license issuance officially means that China's 5G development has entered scale development, moving on from previous commercial trials and experiments," Fu Liang, a Beijing-based telecom industry expert, told the Global Times on Thursday.

China Mobile's massive procurement plan showed that the 5G construction schedule has been accelerated for both the company and the whole industry, Fu noted.

China Mobile's senior executives have noted publicly that after obtaining the 5G commercial license, China Mobile will accelerate the building of a high-quality 5G network and vigorously promote the "5G+" plan.

With a solid foundation for 5G commercial development, the company plans to offer 5G commercial services in 40 cities by the end of September. The first batch of 5G cities includes Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing.

Meanwhile, the average monthly salary of 5G-related talent stood at 14,110 yuan in the first five months, according to huanqiu.com, which cited data from a Beijing-based online recruiting platform Boss Zhipin. The figure attracted wide attention on China's social media, Weibo, on Thursday.

"Thinking about applying for 5G-related majors for my postgraduate program," a netizen said on Weibo. Some others commented that the salary level needs to go up due to a shortage of talent.

"The salary data might be based on a vague definition of 5G-related talent," Fu said. The salaries of core talent involved in 5G technology research are much higher than the figure cited, he said.
Newspaper headline: China Mobile launching first 5G procurement plan