At an open lot in front of the Hefei Municipal Government Service Center, a six-rotor drone lifts off, loaded with ID cards and official documents, bound for the Hefei Railway Station mail processing center 15 kilometers away. By road, that journey takes over an hour; by air, it takes 15 minutes—nearly ten times faster. This urban aerial mail route, in regular operation since February 2025, now moves over 200 express shipments daily, with delivery to customers as quick as the next day, establishing a replicable model for low-altitude smart logistics in cities. Nearby, staff load batteries into the drone before its next departure.

Anhui Province has become China's third pilot province for low-altitude airspace management reform and the only one in the Yangtze River Delta, hosting over 700 companies in the low-altitude sector. Hefei has made low-altitude economy a key engine for developing new productive forces, building out a full industrial ecosystem with more than 260 routes, including drone deliveries. In late 2024, aligning with the province's reform pilot and Hefei's ambition to become a "low-altitude city," and responding to the postal industry's push for unmanned applications, China Telecom Hefei Branch and Hefei Post launched construction of a drone logistics route—the "postal logistics low-altitude corridor."

A stable aerial mail route first requires an invisible ground network. China Telecom designed a dedicated 5G low-altitude private network for this corridor, using beamforming and antenna adjustments to achieve full airspace coverage. "Unlike ground communications, drones need to transmit high-definition video and flight data in real time, so the key requirement is uplink bandwidth," a China Telecom official said. The private network maintains upload speeds of at least 25 Mbps with sub-50-millisecond latency, ensuring stable signal and secure data transmission throughout flight.

Beyond the 5G network, a digital "eye" monitors every takeoff and landing. Around the service center's launch pad, multiple high-definition cameras are connected to China Telecom's video platform, paired with AI algorithms to watch around the clock. The system automatically detects intruders or equipment irregularities near the landing zone, improving safety while reducing the burden on manual patrols. All flight data is funneled into a unified management platform, enabling centralized control and intelligent scheduling. From communication to surveillance to dispatch, a complete digital chain ensures drones can "take off, be seen, and be managed." Hefei now operates several regular drone mail routes.

The value of these aerial routes extends beyond speed. For residents, documents processed in the morning at the service center can be delivered by afternoon, catching the midday distribution cycle. For city traffic, drones bypass ground congestion, making "efficient service delivery" a reality in the transport stage. For the postal system, ground couriers and vehicles are freed up from fixed routes to serve more areas. A notice from five ministries, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, calls for low-altitude public route ground mobile communication network coverage of at least 90 percent by 2027, mature multi-source sensing solutions, improved low-altitude navigation services, at least 10 information infrastructure standards, and typical applications in urban governance, logistics, and tourism. China Telecom Anhui is building a "1+1+4+N" low-altitude capability system focused on logistics and inspection scenarios. The partnership between Hefei Post and Hefei Telecom will deepen, with a "low-altitude logistics network" spanning urban and suburban areas, gradually breaking down "last-mile" delivery barriers in mountainous, island, and rural regions.