China Telecom Says Blockchain Technology Will Become Essential Cornerstone of 5G Ecosystem

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The head of digital economy research at communications giant China Telecom says that blockchain technology will play a critical role in the growth of 5G applications.

In an interview with Securities Daily Jiang Wei (梁伟), chair of the China Telecom Blockchain and Digital Economy Joint Laboratory (中国电信集团区块链与数字经济联合实验室), said that blockchain will have a broad range of applications in the 5G era.

“The integration of 5G and blockchain technology is the trend of the future. Blockchain and 5G are mutually complementary.

“The creation of a 5G Internet of Everything provides limitless possibilities for the growth of the internet of Things.

“The blockchain can solve the data security and value exchange problems of Internet of Things applications, and become the main base technology for driving its growth.

According to Jiang potential application opportunities in the era of 5G development include:

  1. 5G infrastructure crowdsourcing. “By means of profit sharing and the introduction of social capital, the resource tendering method can be used for bid issuance and investment cooperation. “
  2. 5G infrastructure sharing. This mainly refers to sell-side mobile network operators (MNO), and the use of network virtualisation to “abstract” physical and offline electronic infrastructure resources and convert them into different types of virtual resources. “Blockchain can expedite secure, high-efficiency sharing of 5G resources and tracking of usage situations. The use of smart contracts can achieve disintermediation when it comes to agreement sharing and payment.”
  3. International roaming. “Blockchain can be used for the seamless integration and verification of roaming networks, and the efficient and secure sharing of the user information of different network operators on a shared blockchain network.”
  4. Network slicing. “In future blockchain technology can be used to replace part or all NSB functions. in accordance with pre-defined rules, smart contracts can allow different requesters to achieve independent and dynamic coordination of various service contract provisions. Operators can also slice functions on blockchain registration and distribution networks. “
  5. Management and verification of Internet of Things equipment. “With 5G the connection delay for several million IoT devices is projected to be less than 1 millisecond. The integration of such a large volume of IoT devices makes it possible to provide mobile users with new commercial models and services. Blockchain-based decentralised management plans will possess a higher level of trust, visibility and traceability ,and can similarly achieve automated payments.”

China just recently launched its Blockchain Services Network (BSN) on 15 April, creating the world’s largest blockchain ecosystem. The BSN is run as a type of national utility, capable of accommodating a broad range of blockchain protocols.

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