China Mobile is gearing up to test 5G basestations in up to five cities in China in 2017.

DigiTimes is reporting that China Mobile Communications Corp. will set up seven "experimental base stations" in four or five cities in 2017, using frequencies "6GHz and below."

China has been promoting a domestic low-band 3.5GHz specification for 5G networks. SoftBank Corp. is expected to deploy this specification in Japan, and it may migrate to the US via Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) or possibly Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). (See Google, LTE-U & the Question of a Wireless Broadband Future and Islands in the Stream: Don't Expect Full mmWave 5G Coverage in US, Says Nokia.)

For all the latest news on 5G, visit the 5G site here on Light Reading.

Next year appears to be the first year where 5G trials get out of operator and vendor test facilities and into the streets. In addition to China Mobile, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) have both said that they plan urban and suburban "pilot" tests in the US in 2017.

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— Dan Jones, Mobile Editor, Light Reading