A 5G base station is quite expensive – why destroy it?

In recent times, there have been a couple of reports that claim that 5G is the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. As baseless as the reports are, they are gaining popularity and people are beginning to act inappropriately. In the UK, two 5G base stations were recently burnt down in Birmingham and Merseyside because they believe it is causing COVID-19.  However, a 5G base station is not cheap, why should we destroy a harmless and expensive technology?

According to China Mobile, its first phase of 5G construction is complete and its 5G is now available in 50 Chinese cities. At present, the 5G Phase II engineering equipment testing and procurement are fully active. It projects that its 5G base stations will reach 300,000 by the end of 2020. In other words, China Mobile will have nearly 250,000 5G base stations in 2020. To this end, China Mobile’s 2020 capital expenditure budget is 179.8 billion yuan (about $25 billion). Of this sum, the 5G-related investment plan is about 100 billion yuan (about $14 billion). This means that on average, each 5G base station costs nearly 400,000 yuan (about $57,000).

China Mobile patronizes mostly Chinese companies in its purchases. The likes of Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson (Sweedish) and China Xinke (Datang) and all in its supply chain. Among them, Huawei won 133,040 5G base stations, with a winning ratio of 57.25%, which is far ahead. Its unit price of 5G base stations is also the highest among the four suppliers, reaching 161,200 yuan (about $22,000) per seat.

It is worth mentioning that 5G is a very complex system. In addition to the base station itself, it also requires the civil construction of a station building. Furthermore, it needs a core network transmission equipment, power supporting equipment and so on. If we add all these costs, the average deployment cost of a 5G base station will greatly increase. This means that each 5G base station even costs more than the $57,000 in the long run.