China's first 5G shared base station in a substation was completed and put into operation in Nanjing

China Energy Storage Network News: On April 29, the country's first 5G shared base station that simultaneously deploys equipment from the three major telecommunications operators, China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, in a substation was completed and put into operation at the Nanjing 220 kV Chengnanhe Substation.

Since the beginning of this year, Jiangsu has formulated policy opinions on accelerating the promotion of digital "new infrastructure" to expand information consumption and support the development of 5G networks. Nanjing and the entire province will build 10,000 and 52,000 new 5G base stations throughout the year.

State Grid Nanjing Power Supply Company has opened power infrastructure such as power poles and substations to tower companies and operators for the deployment of 5G base stations, facilitating the rapid construction of 5G networks. The implementation and promotion of the sharing model will save a lot of land resources, pipelines, transmission, power resources, etc., reduce the cost of 5G network deployment, and accumulate power for the "new infrastructure".

"Originally, the construction of a 5G base station required 360,000 yuan in construction funds. After shared construction on the power infrastructure, the capital investment is only 30,000 yuan, saving 91.7% compared to the original cost," said Zhou Dongxu, deputy director of the Science and Technology Internet Department of State Grid Nanjing Power Supply Company.

Compared with 4G, the signal frequency band of 5G network is higher and the coverage range is smaller. In order to ensure the quality of 5G network coverage, the layout density of 5G base stations needs to be increased. It is understood that the emergence of shared base stations can solve the problems of high density of 5G base station construction and difficult site selection.

"Nanjing needs to add about 10,000 new 5G base stations in 2020. After starting the co-construction and sharing mode, the construction period of new 5G base stations can be shortened by about 2 months. By working together with the power grid to build, we can make up for the time lost due to the epidemic." said Wang Lei, manager of the industry development department of Nanjing Tower Company.

Operators deploy 5G equipment and data centers in substations. On the one hand, power supply companies can provide reliable and uninterrupted power supply and professional maintenance services, effectively improving the quality of 5G network services. On the other hand, compared with 5G equipment built on commercial buildings and other power supply buildings, shared substations and other power infrastructure can enjoy direct power supply prices, reducing the operating costs of various 5G network equipment.

"In 2020, Nanjing Unicom plans to build 860 new edge data centers throughout the city," said Rui Huaping, Network Development Department of Nanjing Unicom. "Using resource sharing such as substations to build edge data centers will effectively solve the site selection problem and further strengthen the 'nerve endings' of the 5G network. Practice has proved that this model can achieve rapid deployment of 5G networks while ensuring construction safety and network quality." (Yang Yang and Shao Mingchi)