China's commercial rollout of 5G anytime soon while India to start field trials of 5G in 100 days

China on Thursday gave its major state-owned companies green light to start rolling out 5G services in its efforts to move ahe in global race for setting up super-fast telecommunications system, amid simmering tensions with US over techlogy and tre.

Ministry of Industry and Information Techlogy (MIIT) on Thursday issued 5G commercial licenses to China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Rio and Television. It means those carriers can start rolling out commercial 5G applications. y were given a license for testing at end of last year.

5G is next generation cellular techlogy with downlo speeds stated to be 10 to 100 times faster than current 4G LTE networks.

5G networking standard is seen as a critical because it can support next generation of mobile devices in dition to new applications like driverless cars.

Chinese officials say a comprehensive deployment of network will help develop industrial manufacturing, Internet-connected cars, healthcare, smart city manment and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

5G techlogy will establish a high-speed, mobile, safe and widespre new-generation information infrastructure, MIIT Minister Miao Wei said at license presentation ceremony.

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techlogy is expected to bring new opportunities and buoy growth of China's digital ecomy, Miao said, ding that it will accelerate digital transformation of many industries, and will be more intensively used in sectors such as Industrial Internet and Internet of Vehicle.

techlogy is expected to generate 10.6 trillion yuan (about USD 1.54 trillion) worth of ecomic output and over three million jobs between 2020 and 2025, according to a research report by China Acemy of Information and Communications Techlogy.

China, as always, welcomes enterprises at home and abro to actively participate in building, application and promotion of its 5G network and share sector's development dividends, MIIT said.  

5G is being tried in several places in China, including Tibet.

In March this year, Hongkou district in Shanghai city claimed to have become first using both 5G cover and broband gigabit network.

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Shanghai has developed what it claims to be first district boasting both 5G cover and a broband gigabit network, state-run China Daily reported.

5G stations are being installed in different parts of China including Tibet as part of Chinese telecom giant Huawei's plans to le 5G trials despite opposition. 

Huawei has become a central part of a US-China power struggle which started out in tre, and is w being played out in techlogy sector.

US has encourd allies to block Huawei - world's largest maker of telecoms equipment - from ir 5G networks, saying Chinese government could use its products for surveillance. 

Huawei has denied official links with Chinese government.

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Huawei rejects this claim and says it is independent from government.

Still, some countries including Australia and New Zealand have blocked Huawei from supplying equipment for 5G mobile networks.

Efforts by Washington to block Huawei escalated last month when Trump ministration put company on its "entity list", which prohibits US companies from tring with firm unless y have a licence.

China also protested to US over its efforts to extrite Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou, who has been arrested in Cana to face prosecution for violations of US sanctions against Iran. Meng, daughter of Huawei owner Ren Zhengfei has been accused of for allegedly misleing banks about company's business dealings in Iran. 

China and US have also been fighting a tre war over past year, imposing tariffs on billions of dollars of one ar's goods.

(Disclaimer: Except for heline, this story has t been edited by Republic World staff)