In the early days, there were efforts to make 5G more power-efficient than its predecessors, but the ambitions were quickly dashed as realities settled in. Two months after the official rollout of 5G services, a top executive from a Chinese carrier admitted that operators had made little progress in reducing 5G power consumption and cost.
"The existing 5G technology is very immature, hundreds of billions of investment have been deployed, and the operating cost is extremely high, no application scenarios can be found, and it is difficult to digest the cost in the future," former finance minister Lou Jiwei reportedly warned in a recent speech last month.