VIEWPOINT
As the 5G deployments and coverage continue to grow in all geographies, it is placing more requirements on the networks. At the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023, Huawei’s President of Wireless Solution, Cao Ming, elaborated on the company’s strategy and product offerings to help service providers ensure outstanding performance, easier deployment, enhance energy efficiency and make operations and maintenance intelligent.
The 5G technology is moving from strength to strength, with the global 5G users growing by 100% exceeding one billion by the end of 2022. Further, global 5G terminal shipments now account for more than 60% of the total shipments. As a result, the growing 5G ecosystem is posing higher requirements on 5G networks.
“First of all, high-quality mobile videos increase data usage by 10 to 20 times, requiring great network capability expansion. Secondly, voice services are moving towards Voice over New Radio, demanding ubiquitous 5G coverage. The last one, Cellular IoT, including NarrowBand-IoT, RedCap, and Passive IoT, needs 100 billion IoT connection capability in the near future,” said Cao Ming in his address at MWC 2023.
Components of One 5G
Huawei launched the One 5G concept at MWC 2023 to help carriers maximize the network value and use cutting-edge technology to ensure best-in-class customer experience even as the number of subscribers and devices continues to grow.
“The One 5G concept consists of two parts, One Band and One Network. While One Band solution package will maximize the all-band value of each site. A new series of wireless base station solutions will fully unleash the capabilities of each band. On the other hand, One Network solution package will implement intelligent coordination on the entire network,” explained Cao Ming.
He shared crucial details of the different Huawei solutions helping telcos grow in the 5G era.
Solutions to power telco growth in 5G era
About 100,000 units of energy-efficient MetaAAU with Extremely Large Antenna Arrays have been shipped worldwide helping telcos improve the uplink and downlink coverage by 30%. Moreover, MetaAAU reduced energy consumption by 30% in the European field tests.
“Today, Huawei adopts a new series of advanced technologies to upgrade MetaAAU. So the new MetaAAU will not only achieve the best energy efficiency but also implement extremely low power consumption. MetaAAU can reduce energy consumption by 50% for the same coverage, compared to traditional AAUs. During idle times, the “deep dormancy” function can further reduce power consumption to less than 10 Watt, achieving the Zero Bit Zero Watt target,” says Cao Ming.
For limited antenna space scenarios, Huawei has introduced Meta BladeAAU, which provides superior performance and simplified deployment. Essentially, it integrates MetaAAU as active parts to maximize TDD performance and multiple arrays to support all sub-3GHz bands as passive parts. For multiple TDD bands, ultra-wideband MetaAAU, with 800MHz, is the widest bandwidth in the industry. Huawei has also introduced a compact 32T Massive MIMO, which weighs only 12 kg and addresses weight-sensitive problems without compromising performance.
On the other hand, there is a growing consensus in the industry for FDD bands to use ultra-wideband solutions to improve investment efficiency. “Huawei’s ultra-wideband 4T4R RRU has emerged as the most simplified solution for multi-band FDD network deployment. Nowadays, we introduce the latest hardware and algorithm to upgrade this product. It will improve extra 20% energy efficiency. We also provide unique software solutions to ease the deployment. First, the built-in PIM cancellation technology can relieve the worries of interference. Secondly, the upgraded SingleCell solution will treat the entire base station transmission power as an elastic pool. As a result, idle resources can be reallocated from the cell center to the cell edge–just like squeezing toothpaste–This can improve the cell-edge user experience by 20%,” says Cao Ming.
Realizing the relevance of the FDD technology for 5G Standalone networks, Huawei’s hyper-power dual-band 8T8R product with Hertz antenna platform is helping telcos improve the experience and maximize energy efficiency by enabling 100% dynamic power sharing and delivering the same user experience at 8 by 60Watt as that at 8 by 80Watt. On the other hand, power adapting supports telcos by minimizing energy consumption, especially in light load scenarios.
Huawei has also come up with FDD Massive MIMO, which has been widely commercialized across the world. “This year, we merge FDD Massive MIMO with advanced see-through antenna technologies to innovate FDD BladeAAU solution. This solution delivers the best FDD spectrum performance in an extremely easy way. In addition to the hardware upgrade, we improved the beamforming precision. As a result, PMI and SRS can implement more accurate beam scheduling, boosting network capacity by up to five times,” explained Cao Ming.
Realizing that the indoor experience is more important than the outdoor in the 5G era, Huawei’s compact, lightweight and easy-to-deploy LampSite 5.0 supports 3G, 4G and 5G and can flexibly meet the requirements with ultra-high integration. It also supports mmWave, which allows it to deliver 10Gbps speed.
Further, the Huawei Eco-series antenna is designed to help service providers save site energy. “Full-scenario configuration can achieve energy saving for every network. Diversified port configurations meet deployment requirements in urban and suburban areas. The high-gain configuration meets deployment requirements in the deep coverage scenarios. Thanks to SDIF technology, antenna energy efficiency improves to 90% without cable loss. Nowadays, more than 20 operators around the world have tested energy-efficient antennas. In the trial test, the Eco series antenna can help to save more than 15% power consumption,” says Cao Ming.
Huawei would be launching MAGICSwave as well. It comes with three key features. The first is the New 2T traditional RF. The bandwidth is 800 MHz, four times of the industry norm, allowing for improved carrier aggregation. In addition, the smaller antenna size helps reduce the total cost of ownership by 30%. The second crucial feature of this solution is the New 2T E-Band, which provides 25 Gbps capacity. Finally, higher transit power and an intelligent beam-tracking antenna improve the transmission distance by 50% more than the industry, with 70% TCO savings. Lastly is the brand-new indoor unit, which can be accessed by both traditional band and E-Band. In addition, this platform can support up to 24 directions and 25GE for heavy-traffic sites.
Addressing network complexity
In 5G, the spectrum from several bands is used, which increases network complexity. “So intelligent networks are needed to reduce power consumption, enhance user experience and improve network O&M efficiency. Huawei’s IntelligentRAN supports 3GPP-based architecture, standard interfaces and easy interconnection.” says Cao Ming.
iPowerstar, iHashband and iFaultcare are the major functions of IntelligentRAN. The results in live networks show that iPowerstar can achieve 20% power savings, iHashband can enhance the user experience by 30%, and iFaultcare can improve troubleshooting efficiency by 40%.
As the 5G ecosystem evolves, the telcos must adopt cutting-edge solutions to improve efficiency and customer experience for faster monetization. Huawei’s One 5G range of solutions leverages its proven expertise and vast experience working with global telcos to help them acquire new competencies to maximize the gains from the 5G ecosystem.
