In China, the expansion of 5G is progressing quickly, despite the corona crisis (Picture: Pixabay)

China underpins its position as one of the top 5G countries. Despite the Corona crisis, the country is still in a league with South Korea, the United States and Japan, which also strongly support the expansion of 5G and achieve relatively high coverage.

According to a report by the GSM Association, a worldwide industry association of mobile operators, over 160,000 5G base stations are already in use in China. For comparison: in 2018 there were a total of 55,000 active LTE base stations in Germany. As Benjamin Kalt of the chinahandys.net portal calculates, the comparison is not entirely fair, since China is also 26 times larger than Germany. Germany would be on par with 6150 5G masts. The current number of 5G masts should be a fraction of this number.

According to information from the GSMA, more than 50 cities in China are already supplied with 5G. In addition, the GSMA expects half of the country’s entire mobile network to be realized via 5G by 2025. Investments of the equivalent of almost 170 billion euros should be necessary for this.