Sailing on the smart ocean: 5G is changing our production and lifestyle
2024-08-10
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Recently, the 5G-A "Mountain and Sea Tour-Shandong Station" event hosted by China Unicom, Huawei and others was held. From the Spring City of Jinan to the tail of the Yellow River, from the inland land to the depths of the Bohai Sea, we witnessed the rapid development of 5G and 5G-A technologies along the way, and also deeply felt the changes that technology has brought to many industries and people's lives.
5G power private network continues to iterate, accelerating the construction of smart grid
Shandong has a large number of photovoltaic power stations, and photovoltaic power generation is widely distributed and highly volatile, which poses challenges to the safe operation of the power grid. At the same time, Shandong Power Grid is a large ultra-high voltage AC/DC hybrid power grid with a power grid load exceeding 100 million kilowatts. It is urgent to use emerging information and communication technologies to improve the operation quality, efficiency and safety of the power network.
Dr. Fan Jian'an, chief scientist of big data at China Unicom, introduced that the digitalization of the power industry currently faces three major challenges. First, it is difficult to build a network. Fiber optic deployment is time-consuming, costly, and cannot cover all power equipment. Second, there are high reliability requirements. For example, the end-to-end delay must reach 100 milliseconds and the reliability must reach 99.999%. Third, the communication cost of power equipment is high. For example, the planned deployment of 300,000 power equipment in Shandong Province faces huge investment.
Focus on problems and make targeted efforts. In 2021, China Unicom and State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company built China's first provincial 5G power private network, deployed 37 UPFs in 16 cities, connected more than 70,000 power 5G terminals, and deployed 5G applications in 12 scenarios such as power generation, transmission, transformation, distribution, and consumption, promoting the deep integration of 5G and the power system.
In 2023, China Unicom joined hands with State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company and Huawei to complete the largest-scale commercial deployment of RedCap, a provincial 5G private network for electric power in Shandong Province. The largest-scale 5G RedCap+hard slicing private network application in China was built, with 3,220 RedCap terminals deployed, reducing terminal costs by 50%, energy consumption by 32%, saving network construction costs, achieving cost-effectiveness optimization of 5G private electric power networks, injecting new momentum into 5G private electric power networks, and accelerating the construction of smart grids and new power systems.
The application of new technologies is also changing the traditional way of working in the power industry. At the Mingshui Power Supply Station in Zhangqiu District, Jinan, staff demonstrated the application of drone inspections, which not only reduced labor but also reduced the safety risks of traditional inspection personnel. It is reported that the pigeon intelligent inspection system independently developed by State Grid Intelligent has been widely used. 35 grid inspection drone honeycomb airports have been deployed locally, which can fully carry out grid-based and refined automated inspections of power transmission, substation, distribution and other power equipment in Zhangqiu.
Earlier this year, at the 2024 Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain, the State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company's 5G technology-enabled new power system application results were awarded the highest award of the Global Mobile Awards. This indicates that the digital innovation results of State Grid Shandong Electric Power have reached the world's leading level and have created an internationally leading 5G brand in the global communications and energy fields.
Shandong Electric Power will carry out large-scale deployment across the province, and it is expected that the number of 5G power connections will reach 300,000 in 2024, including 150,000 RedCap terminals. It is expected that by 2027, RedCap will be able to achieve a breakthrough of 50 million units in various power scenarios, reducing costs by about 90 billion yuan.
Break through the ocean barrier and connect isolated information islands to the infinite world
The ocean is the blue home of mankind, but it also imposes restrictions on transportation and communications. The Dongying offshore oil production platform is located in the Bohai Sea. How to break through information barriers and connect the world is a major issue. Dongying Unicom actively leverages its own advantages and cooperates with Huawei to take the lead in opening the 5G-A 3CC (three-carrier aggregation) site on the Dongying offshore oil production platform, opening a new era of marine communications.
Offshore drilling platforms are mainly used for offshore oil extraction, and workers also carry out related operations on the platform. Working at sea is not as convenient as working on land. The platform is more than 10 nautical miles offshore, and it takes at least three or four hours to travel back and forth by boat. Workers can only go home once every two weeks to change shifts. There are about 35 employees on the platform per shift, so having an efficient and stable communication network on the platform is an urgent need to ensure the operation of equipment and the lives of personnel.
Dongying Unicom combines three-carrier aggregation technology to build an efficient and excellent mobile network in scenarios where people and equipment gather, such as platform living areas and operation areas. The user experience is improved by 3 to 4 times compared to ordinary 5G users, effectively improving the network experience of operators during work and life, and enhancing the network communication capabilities of equipment, fully meeting the high-speed data transmission requirements for offshore platform operation transmission, information collection and other tasks.
With the comprehensive promotion and application of 5G-A networks, Dongying Unicom will provide a more convenient and efficient network experience for offshore oil production platforms, promote the integrated development of 5G technology with artificial intelligence, big models and other fields, strive to create a batch of 5G-A super applications, and build a more complete digital capability base.
Communication networks go to the deep sea to help promote the marine strategy
The change in drilling platform communication is just one example of 5G application innovation, and a larger range of changes are quietly advancing. Shandong's mainland coastline is 3,345 km long, accounting for one-sixth of the country's total coastline, and the adjacent sea area is 160,000 square kilometers. In recent years, Shandong's comprehensive marine economic strength has increased significantly, and its marine GDP has reached 1.32 trillion yuan, ranking second in the country.
The contradiction between the diversified marine business needs faced by the marine economy and the high cost of satellite communications is becoming increasingly prominent. Conventional communication technology can only achieve near-shore coverage. The signal level strength and speed in the offshore area cannot meet the business needs of coastal fisheries, marine tourism and other businesses. It is necessary to innovate technical solutions to improve offshore coverage capabilities and solve the bottleneck problem of 5G offshore large-scale connections and large-scale applications.
China Unicom has formed a smart ocean corps, based on the construction of a three-dimensional ocean communication network covering air, land, and sea, to accelerate the construction of marine digital information infrastructure, focus on four scenarios: good governance in the ocean, business development in the ocean, benefiting the people in the ocean, and computing power in the ocean, and create a product solution matrix. Focusing on the Shandong Province's "14th Five-Year Plan" marine economic development plan, China Unicom Shandong Branch (hereinafter referred to as "Shandong Unicom") has deployed far-sea 5G ingenuity network services in advance to support the development of the marine economy, deeply promote 5G+ marine application services, and create a 5G far-sea coverage digital demonstration area.
Shandong Unicom focuses on the strategic layout of maritime development, conducts special technical research on 5G marine coverage, innovatively introduces Luneburg sphere lens antennas and the country's first networking method, opens up the coverage of the land 5G marine new basic information network base "up to one nautical mile", and builds the country's first coastal province's entire coastal belt 5G marine ultra-long-distance coverage network in the communications industry.
Shandong Unicom's 5G network covers 64,000 square kilometers of sea area, accounting for 40% of the province's sea area, achieving full coverage of 3,345 kilometers of coastline, with an average depth of 50 kilometers to the sea and a maximum depth of 100 kilometers, opening up the maritime granary and building a maritime information artery.
Under the organization of the Shandong Provincial Marine and Fisheries Law Enforcement and Supervision Bureau and the Marine and Fisheries Safety Emergency Command and Support Center, the test was conducted at the extreme distance of 40 nautical miles from the land. The network download rate reached 122.11Mbps, the upload rate reached 18.88Mbps, the voice calls were clear, and videos on Douyin, Tencent Video, Youku, etc. were played smoothly without any lag. The test results are leading in the industry.
(Dazhong News reporter Zuo Fengqi)
