Wednesday 18 March, 2026
Overview
Shanghai is a leading international metropolis that places great emphasis on its tourism industry. In early 2025, the Shanghai Municipal Government launched its Three-Year Action Plan for Tourism Development (2025–2027), which explicitly calls for using technology to enhance the experience, comfort, and convenience of all visitor services.
Challenge:
Shanghai, as a global city, needs world-class tourism experiences. Tourists on the popular Huangpu River cruises faced two main issues: poor service due to a lack of multilingual guides, and unreliable mobile coverage caused by signal reflection off the water and signal loss inside metal or thick-walled cruise cabins. This prevented the smooth, always-on AI interactions that visitors expected.
Business challenges
- Poor onboard experience: The internet experience on Huangpu River cruises negatively affects overall sightseeing enjoyment.
- Service gaps: A shortage of translation resources hinders service for foreign-language group tours.
- Revenue bottleneck: The sector urgently needs innovative services to boost revenue and maintain market competitiveness.
- Safety risks: The inability to monitor the surrounding environment in real time during navigation poses safety risks.
Technical challenges
- Signal interference: Complex reflections off the river surface risk interference with the wideband spectrum used by current networks.
- Cabin penetration: Cruise ship hulls are made of thick metal, causing significant signal loss and preventing external signals from reaching passengers inside.
- Bandwidth limits: Traditional solutions lack the bandwidth to support hundreds of passengers needing high-speed data simultaneously.
- Signal blocking: High-frequency signals rely on a direct line of sight. When cruise ships turn, this line of sight is often blocked, leading to sudden coverage loss.
“Due to the complex signal reflection on the Huangpu River and cabin barriers, the traditional approach of direct coverage from riverbank stations results in poor signal quality onboard.”
— Lu Heng, Senior Expert of China Telecom Shanghai
Solution:
At MWC Shanghai, the GSMA hosted a launch event for mobile AI, bringing together China Telecom Shanghai, Jiushi Group, and Huawei. During discussions on the industry’s future, the partners unveiled the commercial use of AI glasses for guided tours.
Network foundation
China Telecom Shanghai and Huawei collaborated on an innovative network solution for both land and water. They combined mmWave networks on land with 5G-Advanced C-Band 3CC indoor networks on the ships.
The mmWave base stations were installed along the Huangpu River to guarantee complete coverage inside the cruise cabins. This was achieved by using compact, digitalised indoor devices (LampSite X) and mmWave customer premises equipment (CPE) to ensure reliable, fast connectivity.
Key features
- Interference-free high frequency: The mmWave band avoids interference with signals from the riverbanks. It offers an ultra-large bandwidth of 800 MHz, meeting the transmission needs of hundreds of tourists.
- In-cabin coverage: LampSite X devices were deployed directly inside the cabins, solving the problem of signal loss through the ship’s metal hull. Their large 300 MHz bandwidth caters to the uplink and downlink needs of all passengers.
- Constant connectivity: The mmWave CPEs were installed at the four corners of the cruise ship to ensure a direct, aggregated connection to the mmWave base station from any angle, guaranteeing signal transmission anywhere on board.
Application enablement
China Telecom Shanghai partnered with Rokid to deploy the AI glasses solution.
The glasses are equipped with cameras, microphones, and earphones to provide multilingual guidance and sightseeing information. Crucially, the navigation overlay is presented directly in the wearer’s view, avoiding the distraction and inconvenience of constantly looking down at a phone or map. This enhances both immersion and safety during the tour.
Key features
- Personalised multilingual guide: The AI tour guide glasses offer on-demand sightseeing information in multiple languages, solving the guide shortage for less common languages and significantly boosting visitor satisfaction.
- Enhanced safety monitoring: RedCap cameras installed on the ship use the 5G-Advanced network to send real-time footage to the control centre. The AI analyses this feed to detect potential collision risks, significantly improving navigation safety.
Deployment
By the end of 2025, China Telecom plans to cover all key areas inside and outside Shanghai’s outer ring road with 5G-Advanced, ensuring an enhanced land tourism experience.
Of the 18 cruise ships operated by Jiushi Tourism Group on the Huangpu River, two have completed their network reconstruction, with the rest scheduled for completion by November 2025. The rollout follows a pilot-first, gradual expansion strategy.
On the network side, mmWave base stations along the river are being prioritised, with onboard device implementation happening in phases. By June 2025, ten of these mmWave base stations were deployed.
Drive tests confirmed impressive performance:
- Peak download rates reached 8 Gbit/s
- Uplink rates hit 800 Mbit/s
The reconstruction of the two pilot ships is complete, and the rest are in progress.
Separately, the AI glasses model is being continuously trained using site-specific data to unlock more functions through iterative development.
Impact:
Improved visitor experience
With the wide deployment of 5G-Advanced networks, visitors now enjoy a superior experience. Field tests show that on cruise ships, 5G-Advanced mobile phones achieve:
- Peak download speed of 3.1 Gbit/s
- Uplink peak of 260 Mbit/s
This high capacity means visitors can instantly stream 4K river views and upload high-definition photos without interruption.
They also benefit from the innovative AI glasses for intelligent guiding and real-time translation, making their tour convenient and seamless.
Increased wireless traffic for carriers
The new 5G-Advanced network not only improves the visitor experience but also drives new traffic for carriers. Passengers streaming 4K live broadcasts and HD videos while onboard significantly increase overall wireless data usage.
Safer cruise ship operations
Operationally, the project enhances safety. Real-time HD footage from cameras across the ship is sent to the command centre via the 5G-Advanced network. The AI analyses this feed instantly to detect potential collision risks, making cruise navigation much safer.
Better profitability
The project delivers clear economic returns. Holiday passenger volume is expected to surpass 4 million annually, and the initiative is projected to generate an economic income of CNY X0 million for the operating entities each year.
During MWC Shanghai 2025, the Huangpu River Cruise Ship Showcase attracted significant attention, prompting multiple carriers to follow up by launching their own river and offshore coverage solutions.
Looking ahead, China Telecom Shanghai is expanding the innovation by planning to reuse existing phone booths to launch a city-wide AI glasses rental service. This will allow tourists easy access to immersive city walks featuring multilingual guides and real-time translation, injecting new technological energy into Shanghai’s urban tourism.
“After the delivery of this project, it is anticipated that a commercial virtuous cycle can be achieved through AI glasses rental, with an estimated return on investment (ROI) within six months.”
— Zou Bin, Manager of Jiushi Tourism Project at China Telecom Shanghai
