China Telecom and China Unicom’s joint 5G network deployment reached a target of deploying 300,000 base stations ahead of schedule, with the timeline accelerated to prepare for the launch of standalone (SA) services in Q4, C114.net reported.

Shao Guanglu, deputy secretary at China Telecom, said building a single network and sharing resources, the operators increased the available spectrum to 200MHz, with coverage now reaching all provincial cities nationwide.

Ku Wen, a director general at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told C114.net the country now has more than 480,000 5G base stations nationwide, with connections exceeding 100 million.

Last month, China Unicom chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu said the operators doubled the pace of their 5G deployment with the goal of deploying 300,000 base stations by the year-end: his company deployed 150,000 during H1, taking the pair’s total to 210,000.

At end-June, market leader China Mobile said its deployment stood at 188,000 base stations in more than 50 cities.

Earlier that month, the Ministry forecast the country would have at least 600,000 compatible base stations by the year-end, while Huawei last month predicted China could account for as much as 70 per cent of the global total at that point.