5G RedCap
Overview
On October 17, 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on advancing 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) technical evolution and application innovation. The notice sets goals for 2025: to significantly improve the comprehensive capabilities of the 5G RedCap industry, to produce new products and business models, to scale up integrated applications, and to strengthen security capabilities in parallel. It calls for continued evolution of RedCap standards, development of high-quality RedCap products, establishment of a complete industry chain, and cost reductions across key segments such as chips, modules, and terminals, aiming for more than 100 terminal products.
By 2025, the plan anticipates county-level and above cities across China achieving large-scale RedCap coverage. Application scenarios in industrial, energy, logistics, automotive, public safety, and smart city domains are expected to become more diverse, with a set of replicable, promotable solutions and at least five RedCap application areas each supporting over one million connections. 5G RedCap (Reduced Capability) is a key path for connecting people, machines, and things; its evolution and application will support infrastructure deployment, industrial digital transformation, and deeper integration between the digital and physical economies.
Development Goals
By 2025, the 5G RedCap industry should show notable improvements in overall capability, yield new products and models, expand integrated application scale, and enhance security capabilities concurrently.
1. Steady technical and industrial development
- Continuous evolution of 5G RedCap standards to meet diverse scenario requirements.
- Development of a range of high-quality RedCap products and a complete industry ecosystem.
- Cost reductions across chips, modules, and terminals, with terminal product offerings exceeding 100 models.
2. Growth in application scale
- County-level and above cities across China to achieve large-scale RedCap coverage, with connections increasing by tens of millions.
- Expanded RedCap application scenarios in industrial, energy, logistics, automotive, public safety, and smart city sectors.
- Selection of demonstration benchmarks and a set of replicable solutions, with more than five RedCap application areas reaching one million connections each.
3. A thriving industry ecosystem
- Establish technical and application innovation platforms and public service platforms for RedCap industry development.
- Foster innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in the RedCap space.
Seven Key Tasks
Task 1: Advance RedCap standardization
Develop RedCap-related industrial standards based on 3GPP Release 17, and support industry participation in 3GPP Release 18 and subsequent RedCap international standardization work.
Task 2: Build the RedCap industry system
- Promote collaboration across the industry chain to accelerate product R&D and industrialization, and integrate RedCap with enhanced 5G features.
- Leverage incumbent operators to advance RedCap testing and application verification, accelerating commercial deployment through scenario adaptation.
- Organize ecosystem activities to improve terminal compatibility and industry recognition, and to drive cost reductions for RedCap chips and modules.
Task 3: Accelerate RedCap network capability upgrades
Adopt a moderately forward-looking approach to phased and regional RedCap commercial rollouts, accelerate continuous coverage in major cities, promote industry virtual private networks using RedCap, and improve 5G IoT capabilities.
Task 4: Promote RedCap application innovation
Drive RedCap adoption in wireless sensing and device control within production processes and develop scenario-based solutions for industry, energy, logistics, ports, and automotive sectors. Promote integration of RedCap with video capture and data transmission to expand applications in public safety and smart cities. Encourage wearable and smart home terminal evolution toward RedCap to stimulate personal application innovation.
Task 5: Create industry demonstration benchmarks
Support leading enterprises and operators in building replicable, effective RedCap demonstration projects. Highlight outstanding cases through application competitions, industrial internet pilot projects, and factory directories to set examples for wider adoption.
Task 6: Foster an open RedCap ecosystem
Encourage operators and industry leaders to pursue technological innovation and to coordinate development across the supply chain. Cultivate innovative RedCap small and medium-sized enterprises. Use existing IMT-2020 (5G) promotion platforms for standards, testing, and related work. Establish RedCap testbeds at industry innovation centers to provide technical consulting, testing, certification, and supply-demand matchmaking services.
Task 7: Strengthen RedCap security capabilities
Plan, build, and operate RedCap security measures in parallel with technical and application development. Accelerate security standard development, carry out security risk assessments, and expedite deployment of security capabilities tailored to RedCap features. Encourage development of RedCap security testing tools and service platforms, and promote replication of effective security products and solutions.
Commercial Validation of RedCap
Recently, China Telecom and China Unicom jointly completed a global-first full-band, multi-mode, full-scenario commercial validation of 5G RedCap in Zhejiang, Guizhou, Guangdong, Henan, and Shanghai, and initiated a city-scale commercial rollout. The validation covered multiple high, mid, and low bands including 3.5 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 900 MHz, and 800 MHz. It demonstrated support for more than 20 concurrent high-definition video streams in visual-networking applications, and achieved 100% success rate for seamless handover between 4G and 5G networks, supporting high-mobility applications such as connected vehicles. The trials covered urban, town, rural, and mountainous indoor and outdoor IoT scenarios, achieving robust coverage in complex environments and reliable connectivity. The results indicate that current network conditions can support comprehensive RedCap commercial deployment across industrial, energy, logistics, smart city, automotive, and wearable sectors. Shenzhen, Xi'an, and other cities have already started RedCap service launches.
