On 5th February, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released the Notice on the Construction of Gigabit Cities in 2023, and Ezhou city was successfully selected as a national Gigabit City, together with other additional 96 cities.
Gigabit networks, represented by 5G and Gigabit optical networks, can provide individual users with Gigabit-level accesses for both fixed and mobile networks, featuring characteristics such as ultra-high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, advanced and reliable. According to the Notice, Ezhou has owned 20.91 5G base stations per ten thousand people, with 5G users accounting for 47.66% of the population, 10G-PON ports accounting for 43.18%, and users with a speed of 500Mbps and above reaching 38.09%. The MIIT also highlighted Ezhou’s exemplary practices of incentive policies on 5G applications.
In recent years, Ezhou has attached great importance to the construction of dual Gigabit networks and issued The Plan for Ezhou City to Promote the Construction of “Dual Gigabit” Cities with Full 5G Coverage to position the information network as a strategic infrastructure for economic and social development, continuously optimizing the policies with a sound promotion mechanism being established. As a result, Ezhou has taken the lead in achieving full access to 5G and gigabit optical networks in administrative villages in Hubei province, and has also pioneered a series of influential domestic and provincial applications of them, such as the world’s first 5G digital twin airport, the smart steel plant, Wubao Echeng Iron & Steel Group with 5G coverage, and fully 5G available in Hubei Rongbai Lithium Battery Materials Co., Ltd, exploring new paths for the innovative development of Gigabit networks.
For the next step, Ezhou will fully leverage its advantages in the aggregation of optical communication industries, strong innovation capabilities, and diverse application scenarios, by persistently enhancing the coverage and quality of dual Gigabit networks, increasing efforts in innovation integration, and promoting the more significant role of dual Gigabit networks in the construction of digital public infrastructure and the high-quality development of the digital economy.