At the New Calling Summit hosted by Informa Tech in Paris on October 25, Cai Yali, from the Planning and Construction Department of China Mobile, delivered a keynote speech entitled "Building a Calling-based Service Platform and Creating a New Era for New Calling". During the speech, Cai shared China Mobile's strategy and practices on 5G New Calling with industry practitioners, including operators, industry organizations, and equipment vendors.
Cai Yali delivering a speech at the summit
New Calling incorporates the advantages of operators' voice services, such as rich number resources, native UE entry, global reachability, and QoS assurance. It also introduces a range of new capabilities to the network, including ultra-high definition, intelligent, and interactive calling, as well as new features and techniques like conversation emojis, subtitles, translation, extended reality, and AI generated content. Users can choose service applications and functions during calls based on their communication needs, enjoying personalized, efficient, and intelligent communication experiences.
From Pilot to Large-Scale Deployment, 5G New Calling Is Being Gradually Implemented
As a pioneer in the New Calling industry, China Mobile has positioned 5G New Calling as a major part of its corporate strategy since 2022 and is committed to building a calling-based service platform and developing brand-new 5G applications. According to Cai, China Mobile has officially started the construction of a New Calling network covering 31 provinces in China in Q3 this year, after field testing, pilot and verification. At the end of September, New Calling services have been launched in Jiangsu and other provinces across China. Users have been offered two methods to subscribe to New Calling services, either at one of China Mobile's customer service centers or through the company's APP. After the subscription, they can enjoy various innovative calling functions such as fun calling, real-time translation, and visualized voice calling.
In the future, China Mobile will develop data channel–based interactive calling services, such as intelligent customer service, screen sharing, AR annotation, and multi-party conferencing, as well as services that rely on AI generated content, for example, voice-controlled digital characters. The above services will bring more differentiated experiences to users and create greater business and social value.
Efforts on Standards, Networks, and Ecosystem Promote the Development of the New Calling Industry
As the first mover in developing New Calling services, China Mobile has been collaborating with industry partners to actively innovate in sectors including standards, networks, terminals, and the ecosystem, aiming to promote the development of New Calling.
In terms of standards and ecosystem construction, China Mobile collaborated with industry partners in helping define the NG_RTC architecture in 3GPP Release 18, and worked with GSMA and established a New Calling Foundry project as well as a Task Force to fast-track the construction of the New Calling ecosystem. In her speech, Cai Yali called for industry partners to continue to support the NG_RTC project at the second phase in Release 19 and join the Task Force to drive the development of New Calling.
In terms of terminals, China Mobile has made concrete efforts to bring more terminals that support data channels to the market. It has also been working closely with global mainstream chip and terminal vendors, and has made remarkable progress. In Q1 this year, China Mobile made the first call using a data channel–capable test terminal. And shortly after, commercial terminals have become available, and the first data channel–based call has been completed using Mate 60 Pro on China Mobile's commercial network. As more and more terminals support data channels, user experiences will be definitely further upgraded.
At the end of the speech, Cai Yali called for the entire industry chain to work together, to provide users with real-time, interactive calling experiences and create a bright new era for New Calling.