Chinese telcos vault into low-altitude economy

In yet another divergence from the rest of the industry, Chinese telcos are carving out a role at the center of the burgeoning low-altitude economy.

The big three service providers are providing the connectivity and intelligent infrastructure for what is seen as a major new domestic industry, backed by the imprimatur of a series of government and party decisions.

"Low altitude" involves the use of unmanned drones and eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft) at below 1000m for a huge range of use cases – from industrial logistics and medical services to urban transport and tourism – connected by the combination of 5G, the Beidou system and sensing networks.

China's Civil Aviation Administration says the sector was worth 500 billion Chinese yuan (US$69 billion) in 2023, and will be worth RMB2 trillion ($276 billion) by 2030. Another analysis says it will contribute $700 billion to the economy in 2025.

A report in the official Xinhua news service Monday cites the example of a "super-large drone" collecting the daily catch from a fishing boat offshore and transporting it to the Shanghai market 100km away.

Three integrated networks

This was enabled by China Mobile's 5G-A network providing wide-area coverage below 300 meters through the use of multi-frequency coordination and real-time sensing.

China Mobile says it is building out three integrated networks: a wide-area communication network, an intelligent navigation network and a sensing network, according to Xinhua.

It isn't sharing any specifics other than to say it will provide coverage below 120 meters in key cities and key routes by 2025. It is targeting navigation accuracy of 3-5 cm horizontally and 4-8 cm vertically. 

It has partnered with 15 national SOEs including defense contractors AVIC, China Aerospace Science and Technology (CAST) and Norinco.

China Telecom and China Unicom have similar plans, envisioning the rollout of intelligent networks that integrate sensing, cloud, space and ground.

Wei Jinwu, deputy director of China Unicom Research Institute, told China Electronic News the initial technical problem was how to combine the sensing and the communications networks. Unlike traditional sensing through single channel radar, low-altitude flights use the combination of 5G-A basestations and sensors. The challenge was how to achieve the integration of the two, he said. 

Wei also warned that low-altitude infrastructure must be capable of managing massive scale, with potentially "hundreds of millions" of craft in the air between 120 meters and 300 meters. No previous infrastructure could support air traffic operations at such a scale, he said.

"To truly enable the low-altitude economy to develop on a large scale, the construction of low-altitude intelligent networking is essential," he said.