ZTE's all-band beamforming and ISAC solutions win Light Reading's Leading Lights Awards 2025

• ZTE wins two prestigious Leading Lights Awards 2025, receiving "Most Innovative RAN Product or Solution" for its all-band beamforming suite and "Outstanding Use Case: 5G/6G Innovation" for its ISAC technology in low-altitude applications.
• The all-band beamforming suite significantly improves network performance and efficiency, offering operators enhanced spectral efficiency, legacy infrastructure upgrades without full-site renewal, and greatly reduced total cost of ownership through integrated AI and hardware innovations.
• ZTE's 5G-A ISAC solutions drive low-altitude economy development with technological firsts including dual-waveform sensing and a 0–600 meter coverage AAU, over 100 commercial use cases such as a blood delivery drone network improving efficiency by 60%, and an ecosystem platform built with 31 industry partners.

Shenzhen, China, September 23, 2025 - ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a global leading provider of information and communication technology solutions, has been named the winner of two prestigious awards in Light Reading's 21^st Leading Lights Awards: the "Most Innovative RAN Product or Solution" for its all-band beamforming suite and "Outstanding Use Case: 5G/6G Innovation" for its groundbreaking integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) solutions in low-altitude economic applications.

Maximizing efficiency across every band

All-band beamforming suite, a comprehensive portfolio of advanced hardware solutions designed to maximize the performance and economics of mobile networks. This suite provides operators with a holistic strategy for deploying intelligent beamforming across all mainstream FDD and TDD bands with 2G to 5G all-RAT capabilities, delivering radical improvements in spectral efficiency, operational simplicity, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

The suite's innovations address core operator challenges through three key pillars:

• Maximized spectral efficiency: By generating and precisely steering multiple independent beams simultaneously across low-, mid-, and high-band spectrum, the suite optimizes bandwidth to deliver unparalleled capacity. AI integrated directly into the hardware intelligently adapts network parameters in real-time, boosting capacity by up to 30%.

• Superior performance for legacy infrastructure: The suite uniquely empowers existing network investments. Its intelligent antenna hardware augments deployed RRUs, enabling them to perform dynamic beamforming to extend coverage and enhance user signal strength without a full site overhaul.

• Radically minimized TCO: Groundbreaking hardware innovations drive significant cost savings. Constant Power Amplifier Efficiency technology slashes energy consumption, while multi-band radios consolidate multiple frequency bands into single, compact units. This reduces physical footprint, site rental fees, and capital expenditure.

Shaping the future of low-altitude economy

As the world actively explores new economic growth drivers, the low-altitude economy has emerged as a key focus area. Leveraging its 5G-A ISAC technology, ZTE is driving technological breakthroughs, commercial implementation, and ecosystem collaboration to support the sector's development.

• Technologically, ZTE has pioneered the monostatic and network deployment of ISAC base stations, introduced dual-waveform smart sensing technology, and launched the industry's first super vertical angle AAU with sensing capabilities covering altitudes of 0-600 meters. The company's "multi-modal integration sensing technology" enhances target identification accuracy while reducing missed detections and false alarms.

• Commercially, ZTE has partnered with operators and third-party partners to complete over 100 commercial and pilot projects in low-altitude sector. For example, in Anyang, Henan Province, ZTE and China Unicom leveraged 5G-A ISAC technology to support drone blood delivery, achieving a 60% improvement in delivery efficiency. This project was honored with the GLOMO Award at MWC 2025.

• Ecologically, ZTE has taken a leadership role by establishing a low-altitude industry platform with over 30 partner enterprises. This initiative integrates resources across the industrial chain and promotes technological co-creation, scenario exploration, and shared market development, fostering continued growth across the low-altitude economy.

The Leading Lights Awards is Light Reading's annual program recognizing innovation and achievement in the global communications industry since 2004. The awards are among the most prestigious honors in the telecommunications industry, highlighting top companies, products, teams, and executives for their accomplishments in technologies, services, strategies, and innovations.