Interim licenses help firms to dip toe in 5G sea

Result will accelerate plans and bring superfast speeds to cities initially, while allowing telecom giants to spread costs

China's plan to issue interim 5G licenses in 2019 will accelerate the maturity of the whole telecom value chain and expedite the commercial use of the superfast technology, but also reflects the financial pressure on telecom carriers which have not yet recouped their gigantic investments in 4G network construction, experts said.

Xiang Ligang, a telecom expert and CEO of industry website Cctime, said interim licenses refer to non-nationwide licenses which can only be applied to key cities for some time.