ZTE Helps China Telecom Increase Its 4G Core Competitiveness

 LTE networks were widely deployed in China in 2014. According to IHS statistics, in 2014, LTE deployment in China accounted for 54% of all worldwide LTE deployment. China’s three main operators—China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom—have all played an important role in the 4G era despite having different 3G standards. However, China Telecom stands out because of its advanced 3G CDMA network.
Global mainstream CDMA operators such as Verizon, KDDI, Sprint, and LGU+, have seized the opportunity to develop LTE networks to enhance their network competitiveness and make up for their weaknesses in 3G. They have become the world’s leading LTE operators. The experience of these global LTE network deployments can be summarized as follows:
● full coverage. They have rapidly transitioned from being leading 3G operators to being leading 4G operators.
● new technology application. They have improved new service deployment capabilities to stimulate LTE user activity.
● industry chain optimization. They have gradually shaken off the CDMA industry constraints and snapped rapidly into the global LTE industry chain.

China Telecom can learn from the experience of other mainstream LTE operators to improve its 4G core competitiveness and establish a leading 4G brand in China.

 

Expanding Coverage
Small cells are installed and deployed flexibly and can be used for a variety of coverage scenarios. ZTE boasts a full range of LTE eNBs, including outdoor distributed and integrated eNBs, indoor enterprise distributed and integrated eNBs, and even low-power home eNBs. These eNBs meet China Telecom’s requirement for LTE coverage in different scenarios. ZTE’s LTE eNBs have several backhaul modes, including direct connection through optical fibers, CAT-5 cable connection, and even FTTH. These backhaul modes leverage China Telecom’s transmission advantages.
At PT/Expo Comm China 2014 in Beijing, ZTE officially launched its industry-leading 4G Qcell solution for intensive indoor coverage. This is the world’s first 4G active-distribution solution supporting multi-frequency and multi-mode network deployment. It converges an operator’s networks for superior indoor performance. Unlike traditional DAS solutions, ZTE’s Qcell solution involves the use of standard Ethernet cables for Pico RRU network construction and power supply. This reduces construction cost and complexity, reducing deployment time by 60%.  ZTE’s 4G Qcell also uses cell-combining technology to balance capacity with coverage. ZTE’s transmission compression algorithms and patented multimode integration technologies aggregate two 20 MHz carriers for an LTE cell through an Ethernet cable or provide CDMA/LTE wireless systems through an Ethernet cable. This greatly reduces complexity of multimode indoor coverage networks. In addition, the Qcell and macro eNBs share a network management system, where each node is visible, controllable, and manageable, significantly reducing operation and maintenance costs.
“ZTE’s 4G Qcell solution provides end-users with ubiquitous access to a superior network, both indoors and outdoors, and satisfies demands for both network capacity and service coverage in the 4G era,” said Zhang Jianguo, vice president of ZTE. “The new technology from ZTE outperforms existing solutions on the market, giving operators the advantages of large capacity, seamless coverage, rapid deployment, smooth evolution, manageability, and controllability.”

 

Enhancing User Experience
Enhancing user experience involves maximum download rates and smooth speed experience.
Carrier aggregation (CA) is the most effective means of improving peak rates. ZTE has led the LTE-A technology. Early in June 2013, ZTE demonstrated the aggregation of four carriers at the Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai, with the rate reaching up to 1 Gbps.
Smooth speed is largely affected by data rates at the cell edge. To increase cell edge rates and offer smooth user experience, ZTE proposed Pre5G in which 5G RAN is based on IP transmission and forms a dynamic mesh network. In the mesh network, there are various base stations, such as small UDN, massive MIMO, traditional macro, and D2D. Horizontal collaboration between the various base stations is more frequent than in a 4G network. To adapt to user mobility and moving networks, the mesh network must be dynamic and adaptive. ZTE’s cloud radio is an adaptive technology for dynamic collaboration between base stations. The technology has been field tested in China Telecom’s commercial 4G network and will be gradually used on a larger scale. Test results show that cloud radio can increase the rate of cell-edge users by more than 80% and greatly enhance user experience.

 

Improving the Industry Chain
To remove CDMA functions from terminals and migrate all services, especially voice to LTE, it is necessary to build an LTE network that provides full coverage. China Telecom’s LTE network uses the 1.8 GHz band in the early stage, with its coverage capacity much lower than that of the 800 MHz band in 2G and 3G networks. Since there are far from enough existing base stations for full coverage, many base station sites must be deployed. However, the return on investment in deploying base stations in rural areas is relatively low. Therefore, the low 800 MHz band with better coverage needs to be considered for low-cost LTE deployment in rural areas.
To meet China Telecom’s requirements in rural areas, ZTE has proposed a CDMA2000/LTE dual-mode base station solution. This solution significantly reduces construction and maintenance costs for rural coverage. It is easy to deploy and can even be deployed on existing 2G/3G networks simply by adding LTE baseband boards. There is no need for extra radio frequencies or antennas. This solution helps China Telecom save more than 90% of deployment cost and time for a single base station. “ZTE was the first to launch its CDMA/LTE multimode solution in 2009 and also the first to demonstrate the solution at the CTIA shows in Japan and America. Now the solution has proved successful, and ZTE has led the industry in this regard,” said Liu Jinlong, vice president of ZTE.

 

ZTE is China Telecom’s trusted long-term strategic partner. Drawing on its innovative and pragmatic commitment and cutting-edge technologies, ZTE is building a competitive high-quality 4G network tailored to meet China Telecom’s expectations.