Visual Internet "Four Kingdoms Kill": Who "sees" the market? (with comparison ch

**[Communication Industry News] (Reporter Gao Chao) Currently, the video internet business is rapidly developing, becoming one of the powerful drivers for the upgrade of the digital economy, and it is also the focus of contention among various forces in the ICT and Internet fields. It is understood that in addition to the three major operators and China Tower, ICT companies such as Huawei and ZTE, as well as Internet companies like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, have all released related pan-video products and solutions, and have scaled up in some industry markets.**

So, what is the video internet? The industry generally believes that the video internet refers to a video information service infrastructure that is based on video communication technology, uses IoT connections as the carrier, integrates cloud computing, communication, AI, big data, and other technologies, and provides full-link processing capabilities such as video collection, transmission, storage, analysis, and presentation for video surveillance, video conferencing, video intercom, and other pan-video business scenarios.

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The video internet business is becoming one of the powerful drivers for the upgrade of the digital economy, and it is also the focus of contention among various forces in the ICT and Internet fields.

Looking at the current trend, the scope involved in the video internet business is expanding, and the industry chain involved is also very complex. So, what achievements have the three major operators and China Tower made since the launch of their video internet business? Currently, what challenges do the four communication companies face in the development of related businesses? How will they develop in the future?

Who is doing the video internet?

Sorting out the timeline of the video internet business operations of the three major operators and China Tower, China Tower and China Telecom released their respective video internet businesses and platforms as early as 2021, while China Mobile and China Unicom were slightly later, officially launching their video internet businesses in 2024.

In addition to the different release times, the strategies of the three major operators and China Tower for operating the video internet business are similar. Among them, China Telecom and China Tower both established new professional company entities responsible for the development of the video internet business, while China Unicom and China Mobile are operated by existing professional companies.

The operating entity for China Telecom's video internet business is Tianyi Video United Technology Co., Ltd., established on November 28, 2023, with the company registered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Before the establishment of this company, China Telecom's video internet business was managed by another professional company, Tianyi Digital Life Technology Co., Ltd.

The video internet business of China Tower is managed by China Tower Smart Link Technology Co., Ltd., which was established on June 5, 2019, with the company registered in Beijing.

Unicom Online Information Technology Co., Ltd. is specifically responsible for China Unicom's video internet business, which was established on March 29, 2006, with the company registered in Beijing.China Mobile's visual internet business is coordinated by the group headquarters with the joint participation of various professional companies. Among them, China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Smart Home Operation Center) and China Mobile IoT Co., Ltd. are respectively responsible for the business operations in the personal and family sectors and the government and enterprise sectors. The former was established on March 4, 2014, and is registered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang; the latter was established on September 27, 2012, and is registered in Chongqing.

The specific professional companies being in charge of the visual internet business highlights the approach of the three major operators and China Tower from the very beginning of business development, establishing a professional operation and market-oriented development strategy for related businesses, putting all four companies on the same starting line in this regard.

Continuously Strengthening Infrastructure

The visual internet business is an extension of the Internet of Things in the pan-video industry and is also an alternative commercial operation under the video tide, which relies more on the support of infrastructure. The three major operators and China Tower have accelerated the construction of visual internet infrastructure to operate the visual internet business well.

The Tianyi Visual Internet has been identified by China Telecom as the fifth network in addition to the mobile network, broadband network, IoT, and satellite network. Based on the network reach advantage of China Telecom and the "cloud intelligence super" integrated Tianyi Cloud large base, the Tianyi Visual Internet has built a national "one network, one cloud, one platform" cloud-edge-end integrated fusion centralized platform architecture, and has carried out the "1+31+X+N" architecture upgrade, providing end-to-end cloud-network service capabilities for the large-scale development of video surveillance products.

Unicom Online has built a cloud-network resource construction system, with 1 central node as the core brain of the entire visual internet business, not only bearing high-concurrency access traffic but also being responsible for centralized data processing, analysis, and security management; X edge storage nodes are widely distributed, capable of providing users with data storage and access services nearby, further reducing latency and enhancing user experience.

China Mobile, relying on the "Jiuzhu" computing power internet architecture, has built a video acceleration network. At the same time, it provides differentiated service capabilities, accurately docking customer needs through 5 types of access methods and 8 customized service channels; relying on mobile cloud, the supply of computing power has changed from "cloud-network integration" to "internally generated"; building a ubiquitous basic platform base, planning the "1+N+31+X" platform layout, has built 31 provincial nodes and multiple key city nodes, achieving downward integration into the acceleration network, upward support for a wide range of applications, and horizontal connection of advanced technologies.

China Tower has more than 2.1 million towers and nearly 1 million machine rooms across the country to support the development of the visual internet business hardware infrastructure. At the same time, the Iron Tower Smart Alliance is actively promoting the construction of the edge computing network, and strengthening the construction of the "Iron Tower + Big Data + AI + Edge Computing" network infrastructure.

The three major operators and China Tower have a basically consistent approach to strengthening the visual internet infrastructure, but from the perspective of network scale, the infrastructure of the three major operators is obviously better than that of China Tower, and among the three major operators, China Telecom has a slight advantage.

At the same time, the visual internet of the four major communication companies each has its own advantages and characteristics. The "Bright Kitchen and Bright Stove" of Tianyi Video was once favored, Unicom Online's introduction of the visual internet to the consumer end is widely anticipated, and the large-area monitoring of China Tower has been widely praised.Generating Service Capabilities

With the continuous improvement of infrastructure, the three major operators and China Tower are accelerating the generation of video network business service capabilities, and have achieved positive results.

In terms of user scale, China Telecom's video network user base has exceeded 100 million households, with over 70 million access devices; China Unicom's video network is in the initial stage of development, but the development trend is relatively rapid, with a user base exceeding 10 million households; China Mobile's video network currently serves more than 94 million family users and 10 million government and enterprise customers. Among the four companies, China Telecom has a leading user base, followed closely by China Mobile and China Unicom.

In terms of business capabilities, China Telecom has built a video integration platform; based on its self-developed Star Sea video network model, it has created a "two libraries and one collection" video data element system; and it has built an atomic, component-based, low-code, and zero-code capability open system. China Unicom's video network has covered various fields such as homes, rural areas, communities, and industries. In terms of service capability generation, the three operators each have their own advantages and certain development space, making it difficult to distinguish between them.

In terms of application implementation, China Telecom's video network empowers camera terminals with AI technology, creating more than ten products such as Tianyi Home Guard, Ping'an Smart Eye, Smart Business, Fire Alarm System, Solid Waste Online Platform, and Bright Kitchen. China Unicom's video network business integrates real-time video streams from cameras located across the country with geographical information seamlessly, forming a "Video Network China Map," providing C-end users with services such as video network publishing, real-time map viewing, and social interaction through comments and sharing. China Mobile has created four major product series of "Easy, Cloud, Smart, and Integration" for different customers and demand scenarios. China Tower has served more than 40 industries in the video network field, including forestry and grasslands, environmental protection, water resources, emergency, agriculture, transportation, land, and judicial administration. Among the four companies, China Unicom's operational approach is relatively unique and tends to stand out, but there is a lot of overlap in the video network application development of the four companies, and they need to show their own advantages more in differentiated services.

In terms of ecological cultivation, China Telecom actively embraces the industry, working with partners to carry out extensive cooperation, and jointly creating an ecosystem of applications, terminals, and system integration with industry chain manufacturers, deeply cultivating user vertical application scenarios, and continuously enriching new user experiences. China Unicom, targeting homes, rural areas, communities, and industries, has cooperated with more than a hundred enterprises. China Mobile has established a video network ecological alliance with more than a hundred industry chain partners, with more than 1,000 compatible terminals. China Tower has cooperated with more than 3,000 enterprises, involving fields such as artificial intelligence, industry applications, network security, camera and sensor terminals, etc. The ecological cultivation of the four companies has a certain foundation, but China Telecom and China Mobile are relatively complete and have a certain leading advantage in some areas.

The development scale, service capabilities, and ecological cultivation of the video network business of the three major operators and China Tower are continuously strengthening, but each has its strengths and weaknesses, and it is necessary to strengthen the advantages and make up for the shortcomings in the future, and gradually improve.

Facing Five Major Challenges

The video network business originated from early smart city applications such as video surveillance and safe cities, and the service capabilities and business expansion of pan-video business for other business scenarios are still in the initial stage. Analyzing the current situation of the development of the video network business, the future development faces at least five major challenges in terms of technology, market, security, talent, and operation and maintenance.

In terms of technology, the rapid update and replacement of video network technology have put higher demands on the R&D capabilities and independent innovation capabilities of professional companies. For example, multimedia content such as intelligent monitoring, voice social, and video social requires a transmission network with low latency and high reliability, which requires operators to accelerate the construction of the next generation of the Internet and more advanced wireless communication networks; the application of artificial intelligence technology is expected to improve the level of intelligence of the video network, but it also requires professional companies to increase investment in the construction and training of visual large models, enhance their versatility and adaptability in professional fields, and meet the professional and personalized customization needs of AI analysis in the video network market.In terms of the market, the visual Internet market is an open, customized, and fragmented market. The visual Internet services of the three major operators and China Tower have a high degree of overlap, leading to fierce competition among them, and they also face competition from other enterprises in the ICT and Internet fields. At the same time, visual Internet services are targeted not only at individuals and families but also at government and enterprise sectors, covering a wide range of service areas. This means that companies face different market demands and need to offer personalized service menus, posing a significant challenge to the professional services and monetization capabilities of related enterprises in the visual Internet business.

In terms of security, the extensive application of the visual Internet industry, the diversity of terminals, and the sensitivity differences of video data pose challenges to the end-to-end security of visual Internet services. It requires operating companies to establish a unified, classified, and graded business security plan, forming a full-process protection mechanism for video generation on the terminal side, channel transmission on the network side, video bearing on the cloud side, and video data usage on the user side, to enhance the end-to-end business security of the visual Internet. Moreover, with the rise and widespread application of large-scale video model technology, some surveillance video images may be tampered with by humans through large models. This requires related companies to conduct research on video protection and forgery detection technologies under the visual Internet scenario.

In terms of talent, the visual Internet business not only integrates multiple technologies such as networks, video, computing power, cloud services, and artificial intelligence but also needs to develop and design targeted products and solutions according to market demands. This requires companies to not only attract and cultivate scientific and technological innovation talents in a wide range of related technical fields but also to have front-line product managers and digital delivery service engineers who "understand customers" and "understand the market," as well as a large number of operation and maintenance personnel.

In terms of operation and maintenance, the visual Internet business has high demands for network bandwidth and latency, computing power, and storage resources, requiring related companies to invest a large amount of resources to ensure the stability of the network, expand network bandwidth, and cloud storage space, thereby generating a large amount of operation and maintenance costs and service costs. Moreover, although the investment in AI technology and visual large models can improve the service capabilities of the visual Internet, it also increases the cost of enterprises deploying computing power and large models. Therefore, it is necessary for related companies to perform lightweight processing on large models and explore methods for efficiently reusing computing network resources.

In addition, the breakthrough of the visual Internet business of the four major communication companies faces the challenge of the company's mechanism. Only by being more market-oriented and more user-focused can there be more commercial prospects.

Looking to the future, the visual Internet business is one of the emerging businesses of the three major operators and China Tower, and it holds a high strategic position within their respective groups.

China Telecom has identified the visual Internet business as a successful practice of business innovation that promotes its digital transformation and aids in the construction of a digital and safe China. China Unicom regards the visual Internet business as one of the core elements of its "AI+4+X" innovative product strategy, which is an important strategic force for expanding pan-video business for individuals and enterprises. China Mobile considers the visual Internet as an important strategic new business and an important part of the "two new" upgrade plan. The visual Internet business is also the most important part of the three major business systems of China Tower's smart business. According to the performance disclosure of China Tower in the first half of 2024, the current proportion of related businesses has reached 61.6%.

The importance of the visual Internet business has been highlighted in the strategic systems of the three major operators and China Tower. Around the visual Internet business, these companies have also set development goals.

China Telecom aims to build a unified new type of video service infrastructure nationwide, create a digital platform for serving economic and social development, build an open and cooperative visual Internet ecosystem, help modernize the national governance system and capabilities, provide customers with a product experience that is "warmer, safer, more assured, smoother, and more worry-free," serve thousands of households, and empower hundreds of industries.China Unicom continues to increase the number of access points for its video network platform, enhancing the coverage of video resources, and constantly exploring new application scenarios such as smart cities, telemedicine, and remote education to meet the needs of various industries. It is expanding industrial cooperation and forming alliances with upstream and downstream industries to jointly promote the development of the video network.

China Mobile aims to build a brand-new foundational network with data that is universally accessible, a network that reaches everywhere, omnipresent computing power, intelligence that is all-encompassing, and applications that are seamlessly integrated. The goal is to achieve over 100 million connections, revenues exceeding 10 billion, and to stimulate the industry to surpass 100 billion within three years.

China Tower will continue to strengthen the number of terminals accessing and included in its platform, striving to become a first-class platform with core competitiveness in the domestic high and medium altitude field.

With clear strategic positioning and defined development goals, achieving these objectives requires not only the overall planning and execution of the four companies themselves but also industrial collaboration and the joint construction of an ecosystem.

Experts point out that communication companies have a natural resource endowment when it comes to conducting video network business, with advantages in network infrastructure, video resources, computing support, user scale, and a trustworthy background. However, there are also some obvious shortcomings. Despite this, building a new commercial logic that is phenomenal and scalable based on network capabilities and video potential is clear and straightforward. But ideals are one thing; achieving true commercial success requires more effort, especially in forming paradigms in differentiated business design and market practice, and breaking through the current situation.

We look forward to the "Nth network" of the four communication companies shining brightly.