China Mobile is upgrading over 250,000 cells to 2.5 GHz, 100+ Mbps 5G in 2020. It projects a total capex expenditure for 5G of ~US$14 billion. That’s about US$56,000 per upgraded site. It will reach between 500 million and 700 million Chinese, about half the country. China Telecom and China Unicom are doing a slightly smaller cooperative build at a similar cost.

It is also buying 230,000 base stations for ~US$23,000. Huawei won 55% of the order, ZTE ~30%, Ericsson ~10%, and Datang 5%. Nokia Shanghai Bell was shut out.

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