Hubei gets first trial 5G base station

WUHAN - The first trial 5G base station in Central China's Hubei province opened Thursday in the provincial capital Wuhan.

The province will be among the first in China to conduct mass trials of 5G technology.

"5G technology will be at least 10 times the peak rate of 4G technology," said a spokesperson for the Hubei subsidiary of China Mobile, the world's largest telecom carrier by subscribers. "It will show great advantages in smart cars, smart furniture, and in city construction."

Tests at the trial base station on Thursday showed that the peak rate of 5G technology reached 13 Gigabytes per second.

China is expected to be the world's largest 5G market by 2025, according to a report by GSMA Intelligence, a global mobile think tank, and China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

The CAICT predicted that 5G will drive 6.3 trillion yuan ($1 trillion) of economic output in China by 2030.