If you use the mobile phone card of the three major domestic operators, the overseas connection is often the base station of the local operator, and the network service provided by them. This is mainly because domestic operators have relatively low coverage in many areas overseas and have not laid a large number of base stations.

In addition, in the mobile communication industry, there are many virtual operators in addition to basic operators. To be specific, virtual operators do not have their own base stations, they want to operate mobile communication services,

they must rent base stations from basic operators and buy communication resources, and then sell to ordinary consumers. In the past few years, there have been many virtual operator brands in China, such as Xiaomi,

Ali and other Internet companies, have obtained virtual business licenses. This model is similar to different network roaming, except that the virtual operator does not have its own base station, and the different network roaming between the basic operator is more of a supplement to the weak surface of its signal coverage.

In theory, not only 5G can roam on different networks, but 3G and 4G can also roam on different networks. So, why in the 5G era, the pilot and commercial use of different network roaming began in China? Xiao Lei believes that this is mainly because 5G technology has many particularities.

We all know that compared with 3G and 4G, the construction and laying cost of 5G base stations is higher, and more base stations are often needed to achieve signal coverage in the same range. Domestic 5G is far ahead in the world in terms of coverage density and quantity.

However, compared with 3G and 4G, 5G infrastructure still has a lot of room for progress. Moreover, the strength gap between operators and operators is also very large, like the rich mobile has been gradually promoting faster 5G-A technology,

the number of 5G base stations is also ahead of Unicom, telecom and radio and television. Official data show that as of the first half of 2023, mobile has opened a total of 1.7661 million 5G base stations, more than the number of Unicom telecom co-construction.

In the face of this situation, starting 5G different network roaming between domestic operators is undoubtedly a good way to rationalize and maximize the utilization of 5G resources.

The distribution of benefits is the key to the success of different network roaming

At present, 5G different network roaming in technology does not exist too big obstacles, for operators, which involves the distribution of benefits is the key to its smooth promotion. Normally, each operator is a for-profit enterprise with a direct purpose, and there is competition between each other.

As a result, strong operators lack sufficient incentive to rent base stations from weak operators. The leasing of base stations by vulnerable operators helps eliminate signal dead spots, but they still need to pay additional costs. Therefore, under what conditions to realize inter-network roaming and how to conduct inter-network settlement between operators are the key issues.

From the interpretation of communications experts at the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day conference, in areas with 5G different network roaming services, users can enjoy this service without changing cards and numbers, and without additional charges. It can be seen that the cost of implementing this function does not need consumers to pay for it for the time being.

It is worth mentioning that on May 17, 2023, Xinjiang launched the world's first 5G different network roaming trial commercial. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the number of roaming users of 5G different networks in a single day exceeded 34,000, the amount of roaming data was 2000GB, and the roaming call duration was 200 hours.

From the planning documents released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, a major purpose of promoting 5G different networks is to achieve network support in remote areas.

The number of users in remote areas is small and the network load is low, so even if only one or two operators have completed the base station laying, they can also use redundant network resources for different network users.

In this way, it not only reduces the cost of base station construction in remote areas, but also allows more users to obtain higher network backing protection. Of course, at this level, more consideration is given to the inclusive mobile communication of ordinary people, rather than the commercial interests of operators.

However, in Xiaolei's view, in non-remote areas, the 5G different network marvel mechanism will set a large number of trigger conditions, and then I will say my own guess.

First, operators can only roam with 5G networks and rent other operators' networks when there is no 5G signal in the area. As for how to judge "no 5G signal", there may be two criteria, one is to share the base station distribution database between operators,

so as to divide the specific area of no signal and different network roaming of a certain operator; The other is based on the actual signal situation of the user, that is to say,

even if an operator has laid a base station in the area, there is a signal blind area, and the user can not connect to the 5G network of their own operator, and they can use different networks to roam.

Second, after different network devices connect to other operators' 5G networks through different network roaming, the connection priority may be reduced. We can find that in the 5G era, operators have developed a business model that divides user levels according to package levels.