23 February 2021, Shenzhen, China - At MWC Shanghai, ZTE and the GSMA hosted the 5G Messaging Forum: Building the New 5G Messaging Ecosystem and Empowering the Digital New Economy. The forum attracted industry leaders from the GSMA, CCSA (China Communications Standards Association), AFCA (Asia Financial Cooperation Association), China UnionPay, Zhejiang Meteorological Service Centre, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Japan’s KDDI and other leading operators around the world, as well as leading 5G Messaging vendors such as ZTE, Guodu Interconnection, Shanghai Dahantricom Corporation and Whale Cloud Technology. More than 300 executives and experts from governments, operators and enterprises around the world attended, both online and offline, to share their experience in 5G Messaging and explore their application prospects.

In April last year, the three major operators in China jointly released a white paper, aiming to make the 5G Messaging service a universal 5G information and communication service with multi-terminal support, wide coverage, and multi-industry empowerment. In the same year, the GSMA released its specification which indicated that 5G Messaging should be included in the mandatory functions of 5G terminals. At present, the related industry standards have been formulated in China.

Wang Xiang, Senior Vice President (SVP) of ZTE, said: “5G Messaging has the potential to have a bright future. To help drive the digital economy, ZTE hopes to provide full support for operators in building 5G Messaging networks and developing services, leveraging its 5G Messaging technologies and commercial experience. ZTE will also work with upstream and downstream partners in the industry chain, including operators, terminal manufacturers, service providers, and enterprise users, to build a 5G Messaging application ecosystem.”

Today, through the joint efforts of the three major Chinese operators and industry chain partners, the 5G Messaging industry ecosystem has taken shape. In terms of its commercial application, the three major operators, together with ZTE and other network equipment partners, have actively promoted the construction of 5G Messaging platforms, and the networks have all met the large-scale commercial application conditions. In terms of terminal application, more than 60 terminals from mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have been released to support 5G Messaging to date. In terms of application ecosystem construction, 5G Messaging fully demonstrates the innovative application scenarios that can be integrated with thousands of industries. ZTE supports the three major operators in carrying out industrial research, holding developer competitions and commercial trials, and has incubated over 300 applications in nine major industries such as government and finance.

“Learning from cases in Japan, South Korea, and the United States, the three operators will seek to actively explore ecological cooperation and develop together. They will strive to concentrate resources and give full play to the network value specified in Metcalfe’s Law, laying the foundation for better interconnection and unified access for CSPs in future,” said Zhang Yunyong, CPPCC member and Product Centre General Manager at China Unicom.

At present, the trend is towards the digital economy. “5G Messaging empowers thousands of industries and will connect the last mile for services to reach users of the digital economy,” said Wang Quan, Vice President of ZTE, in a keynote speech. “ZTE is committed to becoming a driver of the digital economy and building the ‘widest and fastest’ last-mile message channel for customers. The ZTE AnyMessaging 5G Messaging platform solution supports AnyNetwork (any network access), AnyService (any industrial application access), AnyWhere (any cloud environment deployment) and AnyScale (any capacity deployment),” he explained. “ZTE will continue to build a technology-leading and commercial leading 5G Messaging platform for operators. All ZTE 5G mobile phone series launched this year will support 5G Messaging, and the ZTE 5G Messaging platform leads in trials and is now commercial-ready. We will make all efforts to support operators in promoting full coverage of terminals. To accelerate industrial upgrades, we have launched Openlab 2.0, and released the first certification system in the industry, providing CSPs with suggestions on 5G Messaging technology, operation and training. The first four CSPs have obtained the certification. We will also cooperate with China Telecommunication Technology Labs (CTTL) in the field of 5G Messaging certification,” he continued.

Furthermore, as the 5G-era upgrade to traditional short message services, 5G Messaging has been widely recognised by global operators. Wang Quan confirmed that “5G Messaging should develop alongside the global scope to build a global 5G Messaging ecosystem.” At the forum, ZTE announced the global 5G Messaging cooperation plan, and launched the ‘0 CAPEX Trial’ initiative, which will provide global operators with 0 CAPEX 5G Messaging trials based on public clouds. ZTE will invite global industry chain partners to build a global 5G Messaging ecosystem and promote the benefits of global 5G Messaging services.

In future, as the first 5G application in large-scale commercial use serving public and industry users, 5G Messaging will bring the benefits of 5G technologies and digital services to billions of users around the world. 5G Messaging demonstrates the concept of “Science for Good”, enabling all users to enjoy the convenience of intelligent services, bringing new models to the digital transformation of industries, injecting momentum into the development of the digital economy, and empowering it with safe and universal-benefit features.