A Study On The Diffusion Of4G Mobile Telecommunication Technology And Its Influencing Factors In China

With the issuance of4G licenses in the end of2013, China has stepped into anew era of high speed mobile internet with three generations of telecommunicationtechnology (2G,3G and4G).3G and4G, as the representative of mobile Internetbroadband communication technology, have been penetrating the market rapidly. As aproduct of mobile telecommunication technology innovation,4G can help realizehigh-speed data transmission and high-definition voice transmission. The issuance of4G not only reveals the development of economy and the improvement of mobiletelecommunication industry in China, but also is in keeping with the targets,“toadhere to scientific and technological progress and innovation” and “to speed up theevolution of information network upgrade”, settled in the “12th Five-year Plan”. Thus,doing research on the recent development of4G and its influencing factors, andforecasting its subscribers will be meaningful and helpful in making improvements inmobile telecommunication industry and making strategies of operators and terminalproviders.After describing the operating data of4G and other data of mobiletelecommunication industry, it is found that, the number of subscribers of4G keepsincreasing steadily, and mobile internet service becomes more usual, and averagemonthly demand of data flow for every single subscriber has also been increased, andall the operators has been focusing on testing the4G hybrid network and put the4Gservice as a key point of strategy. Besides, the number of4G terminals keepsincreasing and the average price of most terminals is below1500RMB. With thedata-scraper and R packages, comments on Sina Weibo, which are relative to4G,have been scraped, divided and counted, and it is found that customer care about thefactors in a wide range, such as operator, brand, service quality, technology generationand service fee.With reviewing the literature and comments, factors influencing4G technologydiffusion have been sorted into four categories and tested with empirical data. Afterusing the stochastic frontier analysis, it is found that the education level and thepercentage of population working in a tertiary industry have positive relationshipswith the mobile penetration rate, and east provinces have significantly highertechnology efficiencies of mobile telecommunication technology diffusion thanmiddle and west provinces. With the multiple linear regression analysis, it is foundthat, average monthly mobile Internet access flow per subscriber has a positiverelationship with the4G subscribers. And the number of4G terminals has a posibive relationship with the4G diffusion while the average price of4G terminals has anegative relationship with4G diffusion. With the comparative analysis, it is found thatthe average service fee of4G (voice service and data service) is much lower than thatof3G.After estimating the diffusion parameters, including innovation coefficient,imitation coefficient and potential market size of31provinces from3G data,4Gmobile subscription has been forecasted by using the original Bass model. Accordingto the results of forecast,4G technology will complete the diffusion in about10yearsafter issuance, and the growth range of the diffusion curve will firstly decline in about5to6years after issuance. Compared with middle and west provinces, most eastprovinces have relevant high innovation coefficient and imitation coefficient, and theymay rapidly penetrate more4G market share in the first5to6years after issuance.After making conclusions, it is suggested that, for achieving a balanceddevelopment, Chinese government should focus on education and othersocioeconomic factors and make corresponding policy to stimulate the developmentof mobile telecommunication industry in middle and west provinces. Operatorsshould assure the enough release of resource and high quality service in eastprovinces as well as keep constructing facilities and carrying out services in middleand west provinces. Terminals providers should make efforts to research and developterminals of price under3000RMB. In the end, it is put forward that there are still afew defects of this research, and about relevant researching work in the future,scholars may pay attention to following points: choosing B-C(1995) model, doingresearch on the perspective of customer, adjusting forecasting model in accordancewith real-time data and pay attention to the effects caused from the outside technologyinnovation environment.