In November, the 2026 Mobile Network Conference arrived in Guangzhou as scheduled. Over the past two years, operators have been shifting from traffic-based operations to experience-based operations. Therefore, I was particularly interested in the progress of 5G-A experience-based operations during this trip.
Do you also want to know: How can the differentiated network capabilities that operators have heavily invested in over the past few years be transformed from backend capabilities into products that users are willing to pay for? To what stage has the commercialization of5G-A experience-based operations reached, and how far is it from ordinary consumers?
Driven by this curiosity, I attended the Digital Intelligence Life AI+ Innovation Cooperation Forum jointly hosted by China Mobile and Huawei. In his address, Sun Shiwei, Deputy General Manager of the Market Operation Department at China Mobile Group, pointed out that China Mobile adheres to the core strategy of "Strengthening the Network Foundation and Full-Stack Innovation," continuously driving the renewal of communication services and transforming differentiated network capabilities into user-perceptible products.
Meanwhile, the forum featured two major initiatives: the launch of the productization of 5G-A network capabilities along with the new UE Logo 2.0 solution, and the nationwide trial commercialization of the 5G-A High-Speed Rail Premium Service on November 25. These moves pressed the accelerator for the large-scale implementation of 5G-A experience-based operations.
Subsequently, I visited the Huawei exhibition area to explore 5G-A experience-based operations, hands-on testing the interactive entry point of UE Logo 2.0 and examining the complete implementation path of the High-Speed Rail Premium Service. The tangible results of this 5G-A experience-based operation system became immediately clear.
01、Industry Inflection Point:From Traffic-Based to Experience-Based Operations—A Must-Answer Question and a Breakthrough Opportunity
Have you noticed that the growth logic of operators has been changing over the last two years? For the past twenty years, the industry relied on scale expansion to drive sustained growth. However, today, the bottlenecks of this model are becoming increasingly evident.
On one hand, the traffic dividend has peaked, with per-user traffic growth slowing down; relying on stacking data packages makes it difficult to boost user ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). On the other hand, user demand is rapidly diversifying, and traditional one-size-fits-all data plans cannot match differentiated scenario requirements.
More critically, the explosion of AI applications is accelerating and amplifying this contradiction. AI conversations, multimodal interactions, and embodied intelligent devices continue to push up the proportion of uplink traffic. Currently, the industry generally expects the uplink traffic share to reach 25%-30%. Traditional best-effort network models are prone to experience fluctuations in high-density and high-speed scenarios. Conversely, the differentiated network capabilities built by operators at significant cost have not yet translated into corresponding commercial revenue. This precisely represents a new growth opportunity in the 5G-A era.
How should operators respond? Sun Shiwei provided a clear answer in his speech: On one hand, China Mobile is promoting the upgrade of network capabilities from best-effort to dedicated channels through product renewal, enriching dedicated network benefit products. On the other hand, China Mobile is deepening Byte+Token operations, partnering with ecosystem players to build new heights of intelligent services and create leading digital life experiences.
02、Two Major Implementations:A New Entry Point and A New Product, Completing the Experience-Based Operations Loop
At the sub-forum, China Mobile unveiled multiple significant achievements in experience-based operations. While touring the exhibition area, I focused on experiencing these related displays. Overall, the implementation path for experience-based operations is very clear: creating a visualized user entry point to solve the pain point of users being unaware of value, while launching benchmark scenario products to create strong-demand scenarios that users are willing to pay for.
New Entry Point: UE Logo 2.0 transforms intangible network experiences into perceptible ones.
At the Huawei exhibition area's experience-based operations section, I tested it using an on-site Huawei smartphone: By pulling down the notification bar, users can intuitively see real-time network speeds and current acceleration tiers. Clicking into the Meta Service entry allows users to view historical network acceleration reports, remaining benefit duration, and even directly claim exclusive network benefits for GlobalPass members.
Do not underestimate this small system entry point. It addresses a long-standing issue in the telecommunications industry: Operators perform extensive network optimization, resource tilting, and priority scheduling, but users remain unaware. Now, through UE Logo 2.0, speed metrics, acceleration status, and enjoyed benefits are clearly presented to users, significantly enhancing their sense of gain.
What is the underlying technical principle? Gao Zhiguo, President of Huawei's Cloud Core Network Product Line, provided a comprehensive explanation: Huawei specifically launched the "Tianshui Plan" to promote deep synergy between devices, networks, and business services. Intelligent collaboration across the three domains of network, terminal, and business is the core support for UE Logo 2.0. The terminal domain precisely reaches users via native Meta Service interfaces, the network domain provides guaranteed dedicated speeds and priorities, and the business domain makes comprehensive decisions based on plan information. The linkage of these three achieves a triple experience upgrade of "Understanding your perception, Meeting your needs, and Adapting to your usage," transforming UE Logo from a static identifier into a perceptible, orderable, and real-time feedback operational interaction entry point.
The advancement of this system is currently rapid. On the terminal side, Huawei already supports this natively on multiple new devices, and existing terminals upgrading to HarmonyOS 7.0 can also unlock this feature. It is estimated that by the end of the year, new devices plus upgraded existing devices will cover 70 million units. On the network and operations side, relevant enterprise standards and operation platforms have officially entered commercial use, possessing the capability for nationwide replication and promotion.
The most convincing evidence comes from provincial-level practical results. Wang Ying, Director and Deputy General Manager of China Mobile Group Henan Co., Ltd., shared Henan's practice approach: Henan Mobile has achieved device-network-business synergy through the paths of front-ending network entry points, marketingizing network resources, and productizing network capabilities. Currently, UE Logo 2.0 has been implemented on Henan's live network, acquiring tens of thousands of users and serving a cumulative 85,000 person-times. Among them, 43% of users are willing to reuse it repeatedly, and the paid subscription rate during the trial period reached 10%. It is expected to achieve million-level commercial capability by the end of the year.
In my view, UE Logo 2.0 is essentially the frontend checkout counter for experience-based operations. Previously, network capabilities were hidden in the backend; now they are directly presented to users—visible, tangible, and activatable at any time—significantly shortening the commercial conversion path.
New Product: 5G-A High-Speed Rail Premium Service sets a scenario-based benchmark.
If UE Logo is a general-purpose experience entry point, then the High-Speed Rail Premium Service is the trump card played by experience-based operations in specific scenarios. At this conference, China Mobile officially announced that the Beijing-Shanghai line 5G-A High-Speed Rail Premium Service will begin trial commercialization on November 25. The event also launched the recruitment of the first batch of 300 experience officers, covering China Mobile users in 9 provinces along the Beijing-Shanghai line (including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, etc.).
Why was high-speed rail chosen as the first benchmark scenario? Because among all travel scenarios, high-speed rail is where users perceive network quality most strongly. High-speed trains travel fast, base station handovers are frequent, and carriage penetration loss is high, making it the easiest scenario to create differentiated experiences.
China Mobile chose the Beijing-Shanghai line as the national model after thorough preparation. This service relies on the "1+3+5" value system: One exclusive identity marker enhances perception; Three key technologies provide the foundation (5G-A 3CC large bandwidth, Core Network AI-NWDAF, Wireless AI Smart Boards); Five high-frequency business types (video, gaming, AI noise-canceling calls, office work, live streaming) receive priority assurance. Ultimately, the stuttering rate for video and meetings can be controlled within1%, with peak downlink speeds reaching 2Gbps and uplink speeds reaching 150Mbps.
Actually, before the national model on the Beijing-Shanghai line, Guangdong Mobile had already launched high-speed rail acceleration packages, acquiring tens of thousands of users and validating user acceptance and commercial feasibility in this scenario. Upgrading to a premium service on a national benchmark line effectively standardizes and productizes the experience from provincial pilots, creating a replicable nationwide product.
In my opinion, choosing high-speed rail as the first scenario benchmark is very smart. First, user pain points are sufficiently clear, effects are easily perceived, facilitating word-of-mouth propagation. Second, the scenario has a high degree of standardization; once one model works, it can be quickly replicated to other lines. More importantly, it sets an example for the entire experience-based operations sector, demonstrating that network capabilities can translate into services that users are willing to pay for.
Author's Observation: Experience-Based Operations Opens the Second Half of 5G-A Value Realization
After touring the forum and exhibition area, I have three new thoughts regarding the growth logic of operators in the 5G-A era.
First, the industry's growth logic is shifting from construction-driven to value-driven, with experience-based operations being the core mainline of the second half of 5G-A. The essence of experience-based operations lies in deeply mining the value of already-built network capabilities. Through differentiated scheduling, scenario-based products, and visualized entry points, it fully releases the premium space of existing networks. It does not rely on large-scale new construction but creates new value through refined operations, product design, and device-network synergy, which is clearly a more sustainable growth path.
Second, experience-based operations compete on the operator's systematic capability across the entire chain of devices, networks, and business services. At least three hurdles must be crossed: First, the network hurdle, achieving precise resource scheduling and dynamic slicing to ensure high-end user experiences without affecting ordinary user experiences; Second, the terminal hurdle, integrating system-level capabilities with mainstream terminal manufacturers to achieve unified entry points and real-time status presentation; Third, the operations hurdle, connecting the full process of business, billing, and customer service to ensure products are orderable, benefits are redeemable, and experiences are quantifiable.
Years of laying foundations weave a vast network; experience-based operations start a new chapter. From building networks to operating experiences, the step taken by China Mobile is both a switch in its own growth logic and an example set for the entire industry. As more life scenarios are illuminated and more users are willing to pay for good experiences, the value of the next-generation communication network as the foundation of the intelligent economy will truly be continuously released.