This month, China Mobile launched the centralized acquisition of base station antennas in 2022. The total procurement scale reached 4.85 billion yuan.

It is worth noting that in this centralized purchase, China Mobile purchased lens antennas for the first time, with a scale of 4206, accounting for less than 1% of the total number of base station antennas, which can be called a water test. The bid winning conditions are as follows (unit: yuan):

The data show that the lens antenna has higher gain and better beam capacity. It was first used in the military field and has been introduced into the field of wireless communication in recent years. Lens antenna has the advantages of few radiation units, simple feed network, high reliability and low power consumption, but the technology and manufacturing process are not fully mature. At present, it is in the early stage of industrialization.

In recent years, China Mobile has tested and verified with Xi’an Haitian, Guangdong Hisense and other enterprises on the current network. Among the successful suppliers, Xi’an Haitian cooperated with China Mobile Research Institute and China Mobile Gansu branch to jointly carry out the pilot application of “lens antenna” in 2020, and made phased progress. The three parties have applied the lens antenna in the pilot of Gansu Lanxin railway and G30 expressway, completed the continuous verification test of road and Bridge coverage with large station spacing, and achieved breakthrough results in solving the problem of cavity coverage with large station spacing.

Guangdong Hisense pointed out that this is the first time that China Mobile has carried out the first-class centralized acquisition of lens antenna group, which means that lens antenna has been widely used in the process of digital society. The characteristics of Longbo ball lens antenna can effectively solve the network coverage problem of various scenes. Its advantages such as low delay, high speed and large capacity can not only improve the network expansion and coverage, but also reduce the construction and maintenance cost, achieve economic income benefits and vigorously enable the construction of 5g network.

In its 2021 annual report, Shenglu communication said that in order to improve the coverage effect of various special scene networks such as high-speed railway, bridge and tunnel and significantly reduce the 5g construction cost, the company independently developed Longbo lens antenna and won the bid for China mobile demonstration project.

On the whole, the application of lens antenna has not been rolled out. As an industry leader, China Mobile has also boosted industrial confidence. Next, with the verification of the application effect of lens antenna in the current network, it is expected to be more widely used in some specific scenes.