It has been more than five years since the commercialization of 5G, and opinions on its pros and cons vary widely. Recently, however, with the revelation of issues in 5G commercialization by academician Wu Hequan, who supports 5G, and the voluntary disclosure of 5G network user numbers by operators, it appears that 5G has merely been a feast orchestrated by equipment suppliers to deceive operators.

Academician Wu Hequan pointed out that since the commercialization of 5G, industry demand has been overestimated. 5G is still primarily targeted at individual users, and for consumers, network stability and signal coverage are more important. Many of the high-tech features emphasized before 5G, such as high speed and ultra-low latency, are actually secondary to individual users.

Operators' performance shows that after five years of 5G development, the enterprise market has not developed. On the contrary, there is an issue of excessively high accounts receivable in the enterprise market, and enterprises place greater emphasis on cost.

China Mobile, China's largest operator, has reported that half of its revenue comes from mobile phone users, with another 20% from home broadband users. This means that up to 70% of its revenue comes from serving "people." Compared to the enterprise market, individual consumers generally pay in advance and there are no issues like bad debts.

In fact, the three major operators have actively expanded into the enterprise market since the 4G era. Among them, the Internet of Things (IoT) is undoubtedly one of their most successful businesses. The number of IoT users of the three major operators has reached 1.4 billion, but the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of these users is as low as around 1 yuan, resulting in meager profits. This highlights that enterprises place greater emphasis on cost.

Five years after the commercialization of 5G, operators have also undergone significant changes this year. China Mobile, for example, abandoned the term "5G package users" and switched to "5G network users" this year.

According to data disclosed by China Mobile, there are only 539 million 5G network users, compared to the 795 million 5G package users reported at the end of 2023. China Mobile's disclosure of the true number of 5G users reveals its subtle attitude towards 5G.

This number of 5G users highlights that nearly half of domestic consumers have not adopted 5G. Moreover, some users who have purchased 5G phones immediately turn off the 5G function upon receiving them. To encourage users to use 5G, mobile phone companies now deeply hide the 5G switch, forcing consumers to go through extra effort to find it and turn off 5G.

Operators also have their own hardships. To develop 5G, operators invested heavily, rebuilding 5G core networks to achieve 5G Standalone (SA) and abandoning the low-cost 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) option. However, after building the 5G networks, they found that they consume too much power and had to shut down 5G base stations during off-peak hours.

China has built the world's largest 5G network, but its coverage is still far from matching that of 4G networks. Operators are now somewhat disheartened and are quietly slowing down 5G network construction.

Globally, the global market is also no longer investing heavily in 5G. Currently, the proportion of 5G base stations built outside China is still around 40%. Ericsson has previously stated that markets outside China will not build 5G networks on a large scale. To maintain cash flow and wait for the next investment opportunity with the commercialization of 6G, Ericsson has laid off a significant number of employees.

As 5G develops to this point, it has become evident that many of the industry prospects painted by equipment suppliers to operators have not materialized. Operators' performance, however, clearly shows that their revenue sources still primarily come from serving "people," prompting them to refocus on the needs of mobile phone users and introduce low-cost packages, which in turn affects their performance.

The performance of some operators shows a decline in communication business revenue, which in turn prompts them to save expenses and be even more reluctant to continue investing in the costly 5G network. It can be said that the current state of 5G has torn off the veil of pretense.