PARTNER CONTENT: As 5G momentum accelerates globally, Xu Daozhou, VP 5G and LTE TDD Product Line at Huawei, explains why the industry should think about experience first when building out networks.
With more than 170 5G networks built within two years, and nearly 500 million users across the 5G ecosystem, Xu Daozhou, VP 5G and LTE TDD Product Line at Huawei, outlined how crucial large bandwidth network construction is to ensure a superior experience on the next-generation technology.
Speaking to Mobile World Live in an exclusive interview at Huawei’s recent Mobile Broadband (MBB) Forum 2021 in Dubai, Daozhou opened up on the progress of 5G commercial use, breaking out the state of rollout across different regions, while highlighting specific usage of TDD technology globally (typically used in unpaired spectrum bands).
Daozhou counts more than 1.5 million 5G base station constructions worldwide, of which a mammoth 85 per cent are TDD Massive MIMO-compliant, while the number of 5G capable terminals exceeded 1000 for the first time this month.
Breaking out the 500 million 5G users, the 5G traffic ratio in China and South Korea has been more than 25 percent and 50 percent respectively, showcasing the dominance of the two countries. These numbers continue to “climb rapidly” according to Daozhou and indeed, in China, 5G momentum continues to grow with Data of Usage (DoU) increasing 30 per cent, and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) up 10 percent. In South Korea, the “ultimate experience” (including services such as Extended Reality), has already increased carrier revenue by 15 percent.
Daozhou asserted that many leading countries have now completed 5G build-outs in urban hotspot areas, while there is sizeable “increased business revenue through the cross-generation experience brought by TDD large-bandwidth network construction”.
In other regions such as the Middle East, Fixed Wireless Access is proving popular, with large swathes of the population seeking faster, next-generation experiences in the home and across businesses, driving revenue growth by five times for operators.
Coming to Latin America, the Huawei executive noted there was still work to be done, with a need to “continuously build large bandwidth for medium frequency bands”, leading to a comprehensive 5G cross-generation experience.
Huawei’s crucial role
So, what role does Huawei play in helping operators achieve a cross-generation 5G experience through technological innovation?
The vendor of course has a huge roster of services and products, which all contribute to its wider “5Gigaverse society” concept, notably a major theme throughout the week at MBB Forum.
With the company estimating that by 2030 mobile traffic will exceed wired traffic and become the main carrier of user internet traffic, Daozhou cautioned there will be new requirements on infrastructure to create and build a gigabit network experience.
For Daozhou, TDD-based large bandwidth networks are a “cornerstone” to achieve cross-generation experience, and he believes Huawei’s traditional AAU, Blade AAU Pro and MetaAAU portfolio are significant in forming the 5Gigaverse.
Explaining why, he noted the coverage capabilities of medium frequency spectrum bands is weaker than that of low frequency bands. The traditional solution to improve base station coverage and overcome this issue is to increase the radio frequency transit power.
“However, this solution only improves the downlink coverage and cannot overcome the limitations of uplink coverage,” he explained.
Crucially, increasing the transmit power also leads to higher power consumption of the module, which is inconsistent with the objective of green energy initiatives, a major goal across the industry, he said.
By utilising Huawei’s MetaAAU, the solution combines software and hardware innovations “to achieve both network performance and energy conservation”.
“The new architecture is introduced, the antenna array scale is doubled, and both the uplink and downlink coverage improve by 30 per cent, while the average experience of cell edge users improves by 20 per cent. Energy consumption is reduced by 30 per cent.”
Importantly, the transit power does not increase, leading to improved experience for CEUs, he added.
To ensure continued improvements, Daozhou highlighted algorithm innovation which also contributes to building 5G experience and capacity, through piece and flexible beamforming. AHR is the core algorithm for Huawei’s M-MIMO solution and AHR Pro introduces an AI algorithm to further improve experience.
Additionally, pole sites are used as supplements for macro sites, deployed on demand to compensate for coverage and capacity. Daozhou explained that this was necessary as 5G required seamless coverage and continuous network experience. In the scenarios where macro sites are limited, pole sites are required.
Huawei contributes to this challenge through a scenario-based on-demand deployment, utilising its BookRRU, EasyMacro and EasyBlink products to enhance residential street coverage. To provide ease of use and deployment, the EasyBlink 2.0 is the smallest 32T3R product in the industry.
A leading 5G network
Addressing the broader opportunity, Daozhou deems a 5G cross-generation experience as ensuring superior capabilities for users, powering new services, and can ultimately lead to business success for operators.
Good accessibility of the network is essential as well. It is estimated that receiving signal strength improvement of 1db can increase the 5G camping ratio (ratio of usage time on 5G to the total) by 1- 2 percent, and then DoU can increase by 300 – 600MB.
Daozhou noted sub-3GHz spectrums are scattered, and medium frequency and above bands have the possibility to provide continuous large bandwidth, which can guarantee the balance of coverage and experience.
“The Massive MIMO technology is used to achieve more than 10 times the cross-generation experience, and beamforming technology can help to achieve similar coverage with low frequency band, which can lead to ubiquitous access,” said Daozhou.
In addition, he explained that medium frequency band network construction can further guide better user migration and increase the 5G Data of Usage, all contributing to “a positive commercial cycle”.
A cross-generation experience
With 5G uptake and momentum continuing to ramp up, Huawei’s Daozhou is adamant that a TDD large-bandwidth approach to network build-outs is crucial to ensuring the next-generation technology will drive an cross-generation experience.
To build out the 5Gigaverse, Huawei’s leading next-generation products are essential to this vision, as the technology enters a new stage commercially and the digitalisation of our industry drives further growth.
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