On October 15, the Bohai Sea Communication and Sensing Network, jointly built by the Beihai Maritime Safety Center the Ministry of Transport, CNOOC, and China Mobile, was officially launched. This marks the Bohai Sea's full entry into a new stage of-speed interconnection and all-domain sensing, providing high-speed, stable, and reliable broadband communication and real-time sensing services for maritime activities.

The Boh Sea is an important navigable sea area in northern China, characterized by dense shipping routes and a complex environment. For a long time, there has been a communication and sensing in the central waters of the Bohai Sea. To solve this problem, under the overall coordination of the Maritime Safety Administration of the Ministry of Transport, the Beih Maritime Safety Center, together with CNOOC and China Mobile, innovatively established a cross-industry co-construction mechanism. The construction team overcame multiple challenges, including weather, harsh sea conditions, tight construction schedules, and technical complexities. Relying on the offshore oil platforms and submarine optical cable resources of the Bohai Oilfield, they successfully carried the network construction of ultra-long-distance offshore communication and sensing base stations.

Currently, in the central waters of the Bohai Sea, 48 5G base stations, 8 Very High Frequency (VHF) base stations, 6 Automatic Identification System (AIS) base stations, and 4 hydrological observation have been built. The comprehensive signal coverage rate has reached 95%, and the 5G network coverage rate exceeds 80%. This achieves full signal coverage for port anchorages, shipping routes, and channels in the Bohai Sea, meeting the communication and sensing needs of maritime supervision, emergency search and rescue, public travel, and industry development.

According to the introduction, the Bohai Communication and Sensing Network has formed four core technological innovations: First, sensing are independently controllable. The comprehensive deployment of domestically produced AIS base stations with fully independent and controllable hardware and software has effectively improved the level of ship information interaction; the of hydrological observation stations on oil and gas platforms has significantly enhanced the capability of tide prediction and analysis. Second, transmission links are high-speed and stable. By efficiently the marine and land communication resources of the Bohai Oilfield and utilizing technologies such as network slicing, the potential of communication links like optical fiber and microwave is fully to build stable transmission links, with transmission rates increasing 50 times compared to the original architecture. Third, the network coverage area has expanded significantly. By adopting Long-Rice antenna and four-band diversity receiving technology, and developing and applying shipborne network enhancement equipment, the maximum coverage distance of a single station has reached 30 miles. Fourth, the digital foundation integrates intelligence. The independently developed communication and sensing data analysis and processing module achieves core functions such as data cleaning, fusion computing, assessment, intelligent analysis, and monitoring and early warning.

Relying on the aforementioned technological innovations, the Bohai Communication and Sensing Network has achieved remarkable practical results In terms of ensuring travel, it is estimated that 300,000 ship trips and 5 million passengers can directly benefit every year; in terms safety supervision, it provides precise support for maritime traffic regulation and emergency search and rescue; in terms of empowering industrial development, it lays a solid communication and data foundation for such as oil and gas development, fishing, and offshore wind power, as well as the development of intelligent shipping, promoting industrial synergy and efficiency.

The completion operation of the Bohai Communication and Sensing Network is an important measure to deeply implement the strategies of a strong transportation nation, a strong network nation, a strong energy nation and a strong maritime nation, and is also an important practice in advancing the construction of the "Broadband Frontier". In the next step, all parties will deepen cooperation, fill coverage gaps and strengthen the supply chain, optimize network performance, deepen multi-source data fusion and communication and sensing applications, and strive to build the Bohai a benchmark area with full coverage of advanced communication and sensing technology, accumulating construction experience for achieving comprehensive communication and sensing coverage along the national coast, and helping to realize the beautiful of "people enjoying their travels and goods flowing smoothly".

Source: People's Posts and Telecommunications