Guizhou, the only province in China without a plain. Surrounded by rugged karst terrain and deep gorges, it has long been considered one of China's representative remote mountain regions and the "poorest province."
On the morning of the 29th, visited Zhenfeng County in southwestern Guizhou Province. About a three-hour drive from downtown Guiyang, a dizzyingly high bridge came into view as we reached the entrance. Sheer cliffs surrounded the area on all sides, and below the bridge, villages built around the winding gorge looked as small as toys.
The passage connecting these villages to the outside of the mountains is the Huajiang Gorge Bridge. It was built 625m above the river surface with a total length of 2.98km. It is the world's highest bridge certified by Guinness World Records. When the bridge opened in Sep. last year, travel time between Guanling County and Zhenfeng County was reduced from 2 hours to 2 minutes. In the past, one had to wind along mountain roads following the gorge, but now vehicles pass straight across the bridge.
Local resident Lin Guoquan said, "In the past, it took hours just to hike up the mountain, but now it's an 8-minute drive from the village to the bridge. Spurred by the bridge's construction, the village also revamped infrastructure like parking lots, drainage, and streetlights," adding, "Recently, more young people have been returning home." Indeed, upon reaching downtown Zhenfeng County, furniture stores, interior shops, and newly built apartments lined the streets, hinting at an inflow of population.
◇ Building 5G atop cliffs by hauling materials with drones
Not only transportation but also the communications network has been strengthened. China's largest mobile carrier, China Mobile, and the largest telecom equipment maker, Huawei, built 5G base stations around the bridge to lay down a communications network. The area is a highland buffeted by strong winds, and the cliff terrain leaves little room to work, making it difficult to apply conventional base-station construction methods. Zhang Liang, deputy general manager of China Mobile's Guizhou branch, said, "Around the Huajiang Gorge Bridge, the risk of landslides makes working at height difficult, so both signal deployment and maintenance are not easy."
However, China Mobile and Huawei transported materials by drone and built 4G and 5G base stations here. In particular, by applying 5G-A (5.5G) multi-frequency technology, they enabled ultra-high-speed, high-capacity services even in mountainous areas with many gorges and cliffs. In on-site demonstrations, download speeds reached up to 630Mbps. On average, downloads were around 300Mbps, while upload speeds peaked at 265Mbps and averaged 105Mbps. An on-site engineer said, "This level is sufficient for high-definition live streaming, large file uploads, and using Virtual Reality (VR) content when tourists crowd in."
In fact, during two days in the Zhenfeng area, there were hardly any instances of dropped connections or slow speeds except in tunnels. Considering that even in central Beijing service can be unstable underground, it was an unexpected experience. China Mobile currently operates about 200,000 base stations across Guizhou, of which more than 74,600 are 5G. The company said every administrative village in Guizhou Province has 5G service.
◇ World's highest bridge becomes a destination drawing up to 40,000 people a day
Thanks to this infrastructure expansion, the Huajiang Gorge Bridge has become a symbol of Guizhou on par with Moutai baijiu. During this year's Lunar New Year holiday, more than 40,000 people a day visited. Lin Guoquan, who returned to his hometown of Huaxiang Village nearby, runs a guesthouse after renovating his maternal grandparents' old house. After the bridge opened, tourists began to increase, and the business grew from the initial 9 rooms to 46 rooms today. According to him, tourists from more than 70 countries have stayed at his guesthouse so far.
Lin said, "In the past, if guests got lost, it was hard to explain how to get here, but now we can guide them in real time by video call," adding, "We automated reservations and room operations using the 5G network, and in my spare time I host live streams myself to attract tourists." He films the bridge and gorge scenery and uploads it to social media (SNS). Lin said, "In the past, people didn't even know where Huaxiang Village was, but now they come to see the world's highest bridge," adding, "The bridge and the communications network are changing the local economy."
◇ A 600-year-old "stone village" goes 5G too… "revenue up 200%"
At Tianlong Tunbao in Anshun, Guizhou Province, visited on the 28th, 5G technology was creating a new ecosystem for traditional culture. Formed during the Ming Dynasty, this village has preserved its original form for more than 600 years and is called a "living fossil of Ming culture." Most buildings are made of stone, and the walled-city structure remains intact.
The problem is the thick stone walls that block signals. A local official said, "Even passing through one wall weakens the signal by nearly half, and after two walls it almost disappears." Moreover, as a protected cultural heritage site, its exterior cannot be damaged nor its structure altered. China Mobile and Huawei overcame this with small cells and indoor distributed systems. The village now operates nine 4G base stations, eight 5G base stations, and 5G-A sites, and most shops and guesthouses are connected to gigabit fiber internet.
As a result, inheritors of the state-level intangible cultural heritage "Dixi (a 600-year-old traditional masked drama)" are introducing performances via live streaming to draw tourists. Residents promote and sell traditional foods, handicrafts, and dyed goods through live commerce. A 30-something returnee surnamed Wei, who does live commerce sales eight hours a day, said, "In the past, being in a mountainous region made it hard to secure sales channels, but now we can sell products anywhere in the country." Zheng Rong, a Dixi inheritor, also said, "Since adopting 5G, revenue has increased by about 200%."
China Mobile and Huawei are working to "smartify" tourism across Guizhou by expanding the 5G network. In 2024, China Mobile built a 5G-A network at the summit of Mount Fanjing to lay ultra-fast connectivity, and at the "Cunchao (village soccer tournament)" that draws more than 5 million spectators, it deployed emergency base stations to handle massive simultaneous access. They also enabled real-time mapping of tourist distribution in Rongjiang County, where Cunchao is held, helping authorities respond to demand.
The construction of 5G networks in China's remote mountains and islands is spreading beyond Guizhou Province. According to Huawei, as of the end of last year, 5G penetration in China's administrative villages exceeded 95%. Huawei has also succeeded in building 5G base stations in places such as Yanjin County in Zhaotong, Yunnan—called "China's narrowest city"—and at the Mount Everest base camp at an elevation of 6,500m. Zhou Jianguo, head of Huawei's Strategic Business Development Department, said, "These networks have enabled rural e-commerce, remote education, and the spread of smart agriculture," adding, "We plan to expand broadband coverage to border regions and densely forested areas going forward."