Tang Wenhao, vice president, chief technology officer (CTO) of Europe and America Region, ZTE Corporation, has revealed the advantages of its 5G solutions for telecom operators.
5G creates infinite opportunities, where both definite challenges in network development and the uncertain challenges of business model are resolved concurrently.
To resolvethe definite challenges in network development, ZTE innovates in products and solutions for network evolution anddevelopsartificial intelligence (AI)-based Operation and Maintenance (O&M) solutions to reduce the total cost of ownership and maximize resource utilization.
ZTE also consolidates customer-oriented foundations to fulfill the emerging requirements from both the business and customer perspectives. We focus ourability in three key areas: strengthening user perception; reducing network construction and operation cost, and improving spectrum efficiency.
To resolvethe uncertain challenges of business model transformation, ZTE remains agile on rapid network elasticity, intelligent slicing operations, and completes capability exposure to support vertical industries. We understand digital transformation can be challenging, but the benefits of making this transition arefull of excitingopportunities.
ZTE is working closely with industry partners from various domains. Our innovative solutions are present in intelligent traffic, remote surgery, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), smart manufacturing, digital twins, andother key activities designed to reshape our modern lives.
ZTE’s philosophy is simplicity prevails, agility makes success. We are committed to building world-class R&D platforms and operations systems to fulfill market and customer requirements.
We operate at the cross-section between operations and industry partnerships to forge forward collaboratively, rise to challenges, and embrace a win-win future. We expect that the industry will witness booming collaborative productivity in the emerging 5G era.
What is ZTE’s uniqueness (USP) in 5G business?
ZTE is the only vendor globally to hold all the following characteristics:
Innovation as fundamental
ZTE is driven by innovation and holds over 36,000 granted patents, of which 2,561 are 5G SEPs (Standard Essential Patent). ZTE designs its own chips and uses them across its product portfolio. We are the world’s leading 5G technology contributor and have developed unique 5G technologies like NOMA (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access), FAST (FDD Assisted Super TDD; with FDD stands for Frequency Division Duplex and TDD stands for Time Division Duplex), and SuperDSS (Super Dynamic Sharing Spectrum).
Fast and vast 5G development
ZTE is the leading vendor in the Mainland China market, where the 5G network is massively deployed and has developed complete solutions to satisfy 5G deployment requirements in complex scenarios. ZTE is the main vendor supporting China Telecom / China Unicom’s 5G network, which is considered the largest 5G sharing network in the world.
Compliance as foundation
ZTE believes compliance is at the essence of its operation, which is the foundation of a sustainable supply chain. ZTE cooperates with industry leaders in various domains and proactively utilizes the most advanced technologies, for example, the latest chip manufacturing processes, to build the most competitive products and solutions for customers.
Does ZTE encounter any challenges in 5G business due to the current US restrictions?
ZTE has a heavy focus on compliance, especially with regards to the regulation of cyber security and solution reliability. ZTE’s internal operations and external cooperation with supply chain partners are functioning normally.
In order to deliver secure and reliable products and solutions to customers, ZTE constantly enforces, reviews, and enhances compliance policies for all aspects of operations and management. ZTE has established ultra-high standards to regulate R&D, delivery, supply chain and other operational processes.
To further emphasize transparency and strengthen collaboration, ZTE has established two cyber security labs. One in Rome, Italy and the another one inBrussels, Belgium. The reliability, trustworthiness, and security of ZTE solutions are accepted internationally.
ZTE recently has passed the GSMA NESAS (Network Equipment Security Assurance Scheme) audit and received ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification from BSI, which are typical instances among all similar audits andverifications.
What are the latest ZTE’s 5G deals? Can you share some examples with us?
By the end of September 2020, ZTE secured 55 5G commercial contracts, in partnerships with over 40 countries and 90 operators worldwide. Our 5G collaborations include Spain OSP, Italy WindTre, Austria H3A, Italy Fastweb, Hungary PPF, Thailand True and South Africa MTN, among others.
Additionally, ZTE has developed over 500 partnerships across 15 industries including transportation, energy, medical, education and media, and has jointly explored 86 5G innovative application scenarios, and carried outover 60 demonstration projects worldwide.
ZTE will continue to expand resources, work with global partners to deepen 5G innovation, create 5G commercial success, and help build a truly global digital economy.
Can you explain the cost effectiveness of ZTE’s 5G solutions?
Investments in 5G can be a large expenditure for companies. As such, ZTE has developed many 5G-related solutions to reduce the network construction costs foroperators.These solutions include:
UniSite solution to reduce the module number by over 70 percent onsite.
SuperDSS solution, which is the only real-time dynamic spectrum solution that supports 2/4/5G or 3/4/5G in the industry, enabling the fast deployment of 5G on the existing FDD spectrum to reduce initial 5G deploy cost.
FAST (FDD Assisted Super TDD) solution, which is the only solution in the industry that enhances both capacity and coverage, reducing the total number of required 5G nodes.
ZTE uses 400MHz full bandwidth 5G active array units (AAU) and flexible Multi Operator Core Network (MOCN) / Multi Operator RAN (MORAN) network sharing solutions, to reduce total 5G investment.
ZTE has AI-based energy saving solutions to reduce operating expenses.
Our AI-based network planning and optimization platform makes network operation and maintenance simpler and more accurate.
Baburajan Kizhakedath