During the recent Huawei Global Analyst Summit 2017 (HAS), Huawei focused on wireless network innovations in the 5G-oriented ‘all-cloud’ era.
Huawei says it is dedicated to maintaining operators’ continual growth through the early deployment of 5G technologies on 4G networks, immediate adoption of new business models, and continuous evolution of network architecture.
Early deployment of 5G technologies on 4G networks
Outstanding technological innovations are expected to inject vitality to 5G. Huawei appealed to the global 5G industry for a long-term vision and to use proactively the innovative air interface and CloudRAN. This allows for sufficient network flexibility and openness, while laying a solid fundamental foundation for the connectivity of everything.
Huawei advocates early deployment of 5G technologies on 4G networks to continuously enhance 4G network capabilities while satisfying operators’ requirements for 5G-oriented network evolution. This initiative helps develop new business models for 5G, optimise cloud-based network architecture, and achieve commercial success through maximised return on investment (ROI) using 4G networks to enhance competitiveness.
Huawei launched a series of industry-leading products and solutions, such as 4T4R, Massive MIMO, and NB-IoT, to assist operators in building 5G-oriented high-performance networks.
Technological innovation can maximise network benefits and increase operators’ ROI. Huawei released the RuralStar solution as well as pole-mounted sites, tubular tower-mounted sites, and many more innovative site types. These products and solutions effectively decrease the total cost of operation (TCO) by up to 66% and the duration for ROI is limited to five years or less.
Huawei also launched a highly-integrated smart antenna solution incorporating eight frequency bands, TDD+FDD, and AAUs. These help resolve antenna issues for smooth network evolution and further endorse 5G compliance.
Continuous evolution of network architecture
Huawei adopts CloudRAN to increase baseband resource utilisation and network operation efficiency, comprehensively satisfying requirements of future network services. This is also combined with the proposal to introduce an innovative CloudAIR solution to allow for spectrum, power, and channel cloudification, enhancing air interface resource usage.
Huawei partners with five top global operators to conduct Proof of Concept (POC) tests on all-cloud wireless network architecture. The CloudRAN and CloudAIR solutions are expected to be ready for large-scale commercial use by 2018.
With the growing complexity of 5G-oriented mobile networks that support a diverse range of services in the all-cloud era, agile O&M based on artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be a key critical development direction. 2017 is witnessing the introduction of AI to wireless networks. Huawei will accelerate the adoption of AI in wireless networks to enable agile O&M and continue to increase network efficiency with improved user experience.
Business innovations on 4G networks
Huawei is dedicated to helping operators expand new businesses on 4G networks through technological and architecture innovations, seizing new opportunities in this new and exciting era.
Huawei proactively encourages operators to deploy wireless home broadband services. WTTx 2.0 provides higher rates, easy-to-install customer premise equipment (CPE), more convenient service provisioning, and 5G-oriented functions to help operators identify new opportunities.
The new-generation LampSite 3.0 achieves a significant breakthrough in key radio frequency technologies and enables the multi-operator sharing capability in a digital network for indoor coverage. This helps operators efficiently expand the business boundary to indoor and business to vertical (B2V) scenarios and produce new potential business growth.
In terms of industry digital transformation, extensive investment has been afforded to NB-IoT chips, modules, networks, and applications to promote maturity of the entire ecosystem. Huawei NB-IoT chips are currently commercially deployed with a monthly delivery volume reaching up to one million pieces.
Huawei also collaborates with over 40 industry partners to develop a dozen NB-IoT services, such as smart water meters, power meters, gas meters, smart parking, street lamps, and tracing.
During the exploration of new mobile applications and business models, Huawei has released a plan aimed towards X Labs future-oriented application scenarios. During the first X Labs Industry Roundtable held at the beginning of 2017, four research projects in 2017 have been released.
The joint research with 105 industry partners worldwide into the areas of drones, cloud robotics, wireless VR/AR, and connected vehicles on 4G and 5G networks will create a huge range of diverse opportunities. Huawei launched the TechCity project to verify new technologies and business models together with operators.
This effectively reduces the duration of network admission and accelerates implementation of new business models, while helping operators discover new spaces for service growth.
Mr. Zhou Yuefeng, chief marketing officer of Huawei Wireless Network Product Line concluded HAS 2017 with the message that, “Huawei expects to adopt new technological and business innovations for 4G networks based on the innovation and evolution of network architecture to maximise operators’ ROI, achieve continuous growth and prepare for the upcoming emergence of 5G.”
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