(Yicai Global) Aug. 30 -- China's 'big three' telecoms carriers plan to expand their 5G pilots to a number of Chinese cities with a view to running a commercial 5G network by 2020.

The three operators will carry out successive pilot projects in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and other cities starting in the second half of this year, and plan to extend the programs to 10 more cities in Zhejiang, Hebei and Shandong provinces, Economic Information Daily reported on Aug. 30.

The project is moving forward steadily, and will lay a solid foundation to construct a 5G network in 2019, the operators said, before commercializing it by 2020.

During the pilots, the carriers will construct base stations and carry out application and technological tests. "Once commercial use of 5G becomes a reality, it will lay a network basis for the development of industries, including the Internet of Things, Big Data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing," said Huang Yuhong, vice director of China Mobile Research Institute.

The communication industry will step into a new development stage after the 5G network is commercialized. As well as the aforementioned sectors, such industries as chips, electronic components and smart hardware will also be upgraded and enjoy huge development potential, the report added.

China's big three carriers are China Mobile Communications Corp., which is listed through China Mobile Ltd. [NYSE:CHL; HKG:0941], China Telecom Corp. Ltd. [NYSE:CHA;HKG:0728] and China United Network Communications Ltd. [SHA:600050], which is currently undergoing a mixed-ownership reform with contributions from Chinese online retail giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. [NYSE:BABA], gaming juggernaut Tencent Holdings Ltd. [HKG:0700] and tech stalwart Baidu Inc. [NASDAQ:BIDU].