With a current wave of initial 5G deployments in certain geographies, ZTE offers a complete portfolio of solutions aiming for facilitating the otherwise laborious and burdensome migration of telecommunications operators globally from 4G to 5G through a more holistic and efficient process.
“All the main features of ZTE’s solutions, based on our understanding of and experiences in network evolution and migration, are direct answers to all of the main challenges that the operators are facing: site deployment, spectrum utilization, 4G & 5G networking, operation & maintenance (O&M), and cost reduction,” said Jianda Shen, VP of ZTE Corporation.
The core of this portfolio is UniSite, which is ZTE’s total solution for RAN site deployment with higher capacity, fewer devices and fully 5G-ready hardware. “As site deployment is the most basic yet fundamental aspect of building a network, RAN simplification is among the biggest challenges the operators are facing. First, site deployment is becoming increasingly complex. Second, insufficient site space makes it difficult to add devices on site. Third, as the prime source of cash flow, 4G high-load sites need to be expanded to meet the increasing traffic requirements,” Shen said.
ZTE’s UniSite solution offers a variety of high-performance and highly integrated innovative products, including ultra-broadband radio (UBR) and combiner-embedded RRUs that save antenna ports and require no external combiner, thus achieving efficient site deployment and realizing “one antenna for all 2G/3G/4G”, so to make a typically crowded site much simpler.
“ZTE UniSite solution helps operators improve the efficiency of multi-band and multi-mode network deployment, greatly improve 4G network performance, simplify site solutions, smoothly upgrade 5G networks, and reduce the comprehensive costs of operators.”
Commenting on the challenges of spectrum utilization, Shen said that ZTE offers a two-fold complete solution, including both hardware and software, to make it easy for the operators. “First, ZTE’s existing Sub3GHz 2G/3G/4G equipment all supports smooth evolution to 5G NR by software upgrade. Second, ZTE Magic Radio Pro solution takes the lead in launching DSS (dynamic spectrum sharing) between LTE and 5G NR, with our rich experiences in deploying, analyzing and optimizing spectrum sharing solution for a huge set of different 2G/3G/4G network scenarios around the world for many years. It supports TTI level spectrum sharing, facilitates smooth evolution from 4G to 5G, and easily empowers 5G whole network coverage capability.”
In the field of O&M, ZTE highlighted that unified all-system network management and the intelligent tools that can improve O&M efficiency by 25%.
“Following the pace of 5G network deployment, ZTE has launched UME network management system since the early stage of 5G deployment with support of unified management of 2G/3G/4G/5G and NB-IoT networks. Powered by our latest big data and artificial intelligent technologies, a full range of O&M tools further improve O&M efficiency by 25% and help operators improve network quality from coverage and capacity to user experience with lower cost.”
Shen also said that these tools can help monetize network infrastructure resources as efficiently as possible and as user-based as possible, based on deep analysis of massive data of the network operation, with features like intelligent forecast of user experience and perception changes and fore-warnings of any adverse impact on the payload of base stations.
ZTE highlights the case of Austrian carrier Hutchison Drei Austria as a clear successful example of evolution from 4G to 5G technology.
On June 19, 2019, the operator announced the launch of the first real 5G continuous network in Austria. “Based on the NSA Option3X architecture and thanks to the existing 4G network and equipment, Drei realized the quick introduction of 5G. And the 4G and 5G co-evolution solution provided by ZTE is helping Drei Austria construct 5G and to migrate network facilities smoothly and cost efficiently in all aspects, and can smoothly evolve to SA without additional hardware in the future.”
“Drei has acquired 3.5 GHz for 5G deployment to be based on NSA for the initial phase, with the incumbent 2G, 3G and 4G radio infrastructure provided by ZTE can easily support 5G with just software upgrade.”
