China Mobile Shanghai launches industry-first 5G-A network monetisation strategy with Huawei

China Mobile Shanghai launches industry-first 5G-A network monetisation strategy with Huawei

Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

• China Mobile Shanghai, in partnership with Huawei, is pioneering a new 5G-Advanced (5G-A) monetization strategy by offering differentiated, premium experiences tailored to specific user communities, such as football fans.
• The “5G-A Exclusive Package for Shenhua Football Fans” exemplifies this by bundling enhanced network performance with lifestyle benefits, including streaming access, merchandise, and prioritized connectivity during high-demand events.
• Huawei’s cutting-edge GainLeap solution and AI-powered intelligent wireless boards are crucial technical enablers, allowing the network to identify premium subscribers and dynamically allocate resources to guarantee superior Quality of Service (QoS).
• This innovative approach addresses market saturation in the telecommunications industry by shifting focus from mere user acquisition to enhanced perceived value and generating new revenue streams through experience-driven services.
• Telcos considering 5G-A monetization should focus on identifying niche communities, leveraging AI for intelligent network management, and forging strategic partnerships to create compelling, value-added service packages.

• The Stadium Showcase: A New Era for 5G-A Monetisation
• Crafting Value: The “5G-A Exclusive Package for Shenhua Football Fans”
• The Technical Backbone: Huawei’s Role in 5G-A Differentiation
• Paving the Way: Industry Implications and Future Outlook
• Actionable Steps for Telcos Considering 5G-A Monetization
• Conclusion
• Frequently Asked Questions

The global telecommunications industry faces a pivotal challenge: how to transform the substantial investments in advanced network infrastructure, particularly 5G-Advanced (5G-A), into sustainable and growing revenue streams. With markets reaching saturation points for basic connectivity, the focus is shifting from acquiring new users to enhancing value for existing ones. China Mobile Shanghai, in collaboration with Huawei, is pioneering a bold new approach to tackle this dilemma, leveraging intelligent network capabilities to offer premium, differentiated experiences to specific user communities.

The Stadium Showcase: A New Era for 5G-A Monetisation

The roar of 80,000 fans at Shanghai Stadium on September 21, 2025, wasn’t just about the football match between Shanghai Shenhua and Chengdu Rongcheng – it was also a live demonstration of how telecom carriers are tackling one of their most pressing challenges: converting advanced network capabilities into revenue.

Huawei brought the international media to witness this implementation firsthand, offering many of us in the press corps our first experience of Chinese football culture. As supporters cheered in waves of blue and white, capturing moments on their phones and sharing videos (despite the crushing crowd density), China Mobile Shanghai’s newly deployed 5G-A network monetisation strategy was being tested in real-time, powered by Huawei’s GainLeap solution and intelligent wireless infrastructure. This event wasn’t merely a technical showcase; it was a blueprint for a new business model. It demonstrated the feasibility of turning advanced network features into tangible, marketable services, highlighting the capabilities required for success at scale.

From the media section, the scale of the technical challenge became apparent – ensuring 80,000 simultaneous users could stream, upload, and transact without network degradation. This was something that required more than additional bandwidth.

China Mobile Shanghai has become the first carrier in China to launch a differentiated 5G-A experience package, marking what industry observers see as a shift in how telecom operators might address revenue growth in saturated markets. This strategic move signals a departure from competing solely on price, instead focusing on perceived value and enhanced user experiences.

Crafting Value: The “5G-A Exclusive Package for Shenhua Football Fans”

The core of China Mobile Shanghai’s innovative strategy lies in its ability to segment user experiences and offer premium services tailored to specific interests. The “5G-A Exclusive Package for Shenhua Football Fans” is a prime example of this targeted approach.

The “5G-A Exclusive Package for Shenhua Football Fans” is a way to transform the elastic capabilities of 5G-Advanced networks into tangible value that users can perceive and are willing to pay for. This package goes beyond mere network speed; it bundles connectivity with lifestyle benefits, creating a holistic value proposition designed to resonate deeply with a dedicated fan base.

The technical foundation for this 5G-A network monetisation strategy relies heavily on Huawei’s technology portfolio, from the GainLeap solution that identifies premium subscribers, to the AI-powered intelligent wireless boards that optimise network performance. This integration of advanced technology is what makes the differentiation possible at a practical, scalable level.

The business model innovation:

The partnership between China Mobile Shanghai and Shanghai Shenhua Football Club offers approximately 200,000 football fans an annual package that combines network performance guarantees with fan-specific benefits.

Subscribers receive network acceleration on 5G-A, access to all matches via the Migu streaming service, unlimited video ringback tone downloads, and Shanghai Shenhua Football Club merchandise.

This approach to 5G-A network monetisation addresses what China Mobile Shanghai identifies as an important pain point for the telecommunications industry: how to drive quality growth when user acquisition has reached its ceiling. Rather than competing solely on price or basic connectivity, the package creates value through enhanced experiences in specific use-cases.

Real-world example: Imagine a dedicated Shenhua fan, deep within the stadium’s cheering crowd, capturing a stunning goal. With the “5G-A Exclusive Package,” they can instantly upload a high-definition video of that moment to social media, stream live replays without buffering, and even make quick, seamless mobile payments for refreshments – all while 80,000 other fans are doing the same. This isn’t just about faster internet; it’s about an uninterrupted, enriched, and integrated fan experience that commands a premium.

The Technical Backbone: Huawei’s Role in 5G-A Differentiation

The seamless experience offered by China Mobile Shanghai is built upon a sophisticated technical architecture, with Huawei’s innovative solutions playing a central role in enabling the differentiated services and guaranteeing performance.

The technical infrastructure behind the experience:

For Shanghai Stadium, China Mobile Shanghai implemented an elastic, scalable network capable of handling massive concurrent demand. During the match, with 80,000 users accessing the network simultaneously, 5G-A package subscribers can achieve download speeds of up to 600 Mbps.

The necessary technical foundation relies on Huawei’s GainLeap solution, which lets the network identify 5G-A subscribers and allocates them a high-speed 3CC (three-component carrier) channel. The differentiation is key to the 5G-A network monetisation model – creating measurable performance differences between standard and premium subscribers. This precise allocation ensures that those paying for premium receive a demonstrably superior service.

Behind the scenes, Huawei’s AI-powered intelligent wireless boards play a central role. They integrate on-board communications capabilities with artificial intelligence to perceive network service types, user experience goals, device characteristics, and resource status, in milliseconds. This real-time, intelligent resource allocation is critical for guaranteeing premium service quality amidst fluctuating and unpredictable demand, such as during a live sporting event.

According to test data provided by China Mobile Shanghai, they have helped result in QR code scanning latency reduced by 47%, WeChat uploading time shortened by 25%, live streaming speeds increased by 27%, and high-definition video ratios increased by 11%. These metrics underscore the tangible benefits of the enhanced network.

Infrastructure deployment scale:

To support the high concurrent demand during events, China Mobile Shanghai and Huawei conducted comprehensive network upgrades at the stadium. The lower stands received 32 new 2.6 GHz and 4.9 GHz pRRUs (passive remote radio units), more than doubling overall network capacity. Seven escalator entrances each received a 4.9 GHz EM device to eliminate coverage dead spots. These targeted infrastructure improvements ensure ubiquitous high-quality coverage where it’s needed most.

On match days, more than 40 engineers are stationed onsite for real-time network monitoring and dynamic optimisation. Outside of the stadium, China Mobile Shanghai has achieved continuous 5G-A coverage in the area inside Shanghai’s Outer Ring Road, the five new towns further out, and 21 metro lines in the city. This extensive coverage ensures that the premium experience is not limited to specific event venues but extends across daily life for subscribers, making the package even more valuable.

Paving the Way: Industry Implications and Future Outlook

The successful deployment and demonstration at Shanghai Stadium have significant implications for the broader telecommunications industry, offering a potential roadmap for 5G-A monetization beyond traditional models.

The practical user experience:

For fans at the match, the differentiated service manifested practically. The high bandwidth and business-level assurance capabilities enabled quick mobile payments for drinks, snacks, and souvenirs onsite. Users could share video highlights in real time without lag, even during peak moments when thousands of fans uploaded data simultaneously.

The ability to instantly see likes and comments from friends while still in the stadium represents the kind of enhanced experience that China Mobile Shanghai is betting users will value enough to pay a premium for. Whether this bet pays off commercially remains to be seen, but the technical execution at the September 21 match demonstrated that the infrastructure delivers on its promises. This real-world validation is crucial for inspiring confidence in similar future ventures.

Industry implications:

The initiative raises questions about the future of 5G-A network monetisation strategies in the telecommunications industry. Traditional models have struggled to justify the massive infrastructure investments required for 5G and latterly, 5G-Advanced networks. By creating tiered experiences tied to specific user communities – in this case, football fans – carriers may have found a way to differentiate services beyond simple speed tiers. This community-centric approach unlocks new revenue streams by focusing on perceived value rather than just raw connectivity metrics, aligning services with actual user lifestyles and passions.

The approach also represents a test case for how deeply integrated AI capabilities in network infrastructure can enable new business models. The intelligent wireless boards’ ability to make millisecond-level decisions about resource allocation is what makes the performance differentiation technically feasible at scale. AI-driven networks are not just about efficiency; they are becoming crucial enablers for innovative service delivery and customized customer experiences.

China Mobile Shanghai’s target of serving 200,000 Shenhua fans provides a measurable benchmark for assessing commercial viability. This quantifiable goal allows the industry to track the success of this model and learn from its implementation. The emphasis on specific communities could extend to gaming, smart cities, enterprise solutions, or even augmented reality experiences, paving the way for a diverse range of 5G-A offerings.

Actionable Steps for Telcos Considering 5G-A Monetization:

1. Identify Niche Communities and Tailor Experiences: Move beyond generic speed tiers. Conduct thorough market research to pinpoint specific user segments (e.g., gamers, remote workers, live event enthusiasts, enterprise verticals) and deeply understand their unique needs and pain points. Develop bundled packages that combine enhanced connectivity with highly relevant value-added services or content, creating a compelling reason for these communities to pay a premium.
2. Leverage AI for Intelligent Network Management: Invest in AI-powered infrastructure that can dynamically allocate network resources and guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) for differentiated packages. This intelligent management is absolutely crucial for delivering on premium promises and ensuring a consistent, high-quality experience for paying subscribers, even under heavy network load and fluctuating demand.
3. Forge Strategic Partnerships for Value Creation: Collaborate proactively with content providers, sports clubs, entertainment venues, smart city initiatives, or other relevant industries to co-create compelling packages. These strategic partnerships can significantly expand the perceived value of 5G-A services beyond core connectivity, making the offerings far more attractive and justifiable for a premium price point in a competitive market.

As telecommunications companies globally grapple with how to monetise increasingly expensive network upgrades, China Mobile Shanghai’s experiment with community-specific, experience-based packages may offer invaluable insights for the industry’s evolution beyond traditional connectivity provision.

(Image source: Smart Shanghai )

Conclusion

China Mobile Shanghai’s initiative with Huawei at Shanghai Stadium marks a significant turning point in the journey to monetize 5G-Advanced networks. By shifting from a volume-based model to one centered on differentiated, experience-driven value, they are demonstrating a viable path for carriers to generate new revenue streams in saturated markets. The integration of advanced technical capabilities, particularly Huawei’s AI-powered solutions, with innovative business models, provides a compelling blueprint for the future of telecommunications. The industry will keenly watch as this strategy unfolds, potentially setting a new standard for how network capabilities translate into commercial success and redefine the relationship between carriers and their customers.

Frequently Asked Questions

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