China Telecom, China Unicom Launch 5G Call Service

A new type of Ultra High Definition (UHD) call service based on the 5G network was launched by China Telecom Corporation Limited (China Telecom) and China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. (China Unicom) on April 26. It is called VoNR: Voice over New Radio. 

The service is available in Shenzhen of South China's Guangdong Province, Hangzhou of East China's Zhejiang Province, Zhengzhou of Central China's Henan Province and the Tianjin Municipality. The two companies said that the service is scheduled to be promoted in more than 100 major cities in May.

Compared with the 4G VoLTE HD video call service, the newly-launched call service provides faster, more fluent and clearer video and audio experience thanks to its 5G network with large bandwidth, low latency and high reliability.

Users will be able to share screen and send pictures, videos and documents during the call.

Real-time transcription, mutual translation and simultaneous interpretation of multiple languages and dialects can also be realized during the call, which will effectively solve communication barriers of different languages and dialects.

By the end of 2021, the two companies had jointly built 690,000 5G base stations. The number of available 5G base stations is expected to exceed 990,000 by the end of 2022.

Meanwhile, the two operators will continue to promote the customer-centric network roaming service, which will cut down energy consumption and improve income from investment while expanding the scope of 5G network usage.

According to the operators, mainstream 5G chip and key 5G terminal manufacturers have shown their willingness to support the new 5G call service. At present, the service is available on a number of mainstream 5G smartphone brands including Vivo, Honor, OPPO, Huawei, Samsung and Xiaomi.

China Telecom and China Unicom said that they will continue to improve technologies and network capacities to guarantee mass utilization of the new 5G call service and promote the service to various industries, providing high-quality digital experience for users.

(Executive editor: Niu Yilin)