(JW Insights) May 22 -- China Mobile(中国移动), the country's top phone carrier, has released a virtual phone service to free users of the physical restrictions of their handsets while offering calls based on fifth-generation wireless networks, reported Yicai Global on May 19.

Users of the so-called cloud phone can control it via China Mobile's website or mobile application on a physical handset and choose device features such as storage or processor capacity, Yicai Global learned as the Beijing-based firm released the product on May 17 - the annual World Telecommunication Day.

Even clients of other network providers can sign up for a trial with two hours of free use every day. The service supports high-definition videos. In the future, clients can create their own data plans based on computing power demand, choosing the capacity of central processing and graphic processing units, cache, and storage, China Mobile said.

Moreover, China Mobile and American chipmaker Qualcomm announced that they have teamed up with Chinese handset makers such as Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE to test a service of 5G-based phone calls based on IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) data channels that enable more interactive calls with features such as screen-sharing, emojis, or augmented reality overlays.

Sun Gang, VP of product marketing at Qualcomm, said that as 5G networks are deployed at a large scale, 5G phone calls relying on IMS architecture will be continuously making progress, according to the Yicai Global report.

(Chen HX)