10 key enablers for accelerating global commercial adoption of 5G: Huawei mantra

Yang Chaobin unveiled Huawei's 10 key enablers of 5G, including the full-series all-scenario ultra-broadband products and solutions to facilitate all frequency band evolution to 5G, and the innovative end-to-end super uplink and slicing solutions to help operators build full-service capabilities.

These offerings are intended to better cater to end-users, home users, and industry users to secure business success in the 5G era. Yang Chaobin Unveils Huawei 5G 10 Key Enablers:

Extensive 5G Commercial Experience to Accelerate 5G Scale Deployment

According to the latest GSA update, by the end of 2019, 62 telecom operators in 34 countries had officially announced the commercial release of 5G, and 41 of them are supported by Huawei, accounting for two-thirds of the total figure."

Despite constant pressure from the outside world, Huawei is still forging ahead. Our 5G products and solutions have been favored by the majority of worldwide telecom operators.

As of today, Huawei has concluded 5G commercial contracts with 91 telecom operators and shipped over 600,000 5G products.

All these commercial deployment experiences will be utilized to improve product performance to meet customer expectations and help telecom operators deploy 5G commercial networks more economically and efficiently," said Yang Chaobin.

Comprehensive Portfolios to Provide Consistent 5G Ultimate Experience

From the very onset of 5G construction, both capacity and coverage must be planned carefully in order to provide a consistent user experience. Huawei has a comprehensive product portfolio for all kinds of scenarios.

The three-layer networking architecture, including macro base stations for basic coverage and capacity, Easy Marco deployed at pole sites for coverage supplement, and LampSite for indoor digital systems enables seamless coverage and a consistent, enjoyable experience for end-users. In addition, Huawei has released the industry's lightest Massive MIMO AAU.

It weighs only 25 kg and can be transported and installed by a single person, but delivers a guaranteed performance. It greatly improves operators' network construction efficiency.

Industry's Only Ultra-Broadband Solution, Simplifying Network Deployment

In the 5G era, a continuous large-bandwidth TDD spectrum is the optimum choice for achieving an ultimate 5G experience. However, a significant number of telecom operators only get discontinuous segments of spectrums due to satellite occupation or discrete allocation.

Huawei has launched the industry's only full series of ultra-broadband solutions, which support a maximum bandwidth of 400 MHz.

With just one module, all discrete spectrums within 400 MHz can be used. It saves modules and simplifies site deployment, greatly slashing site rental and hardware costs for telecom operators.

Exclusive Blade AAU, All in One for Simplified Deployment

As Yang Chaobin said, "In the process of mobile communications development, telecom operators have been using greater numbers of antenna units as a solution for insufficient sites and poles. Now they have to deal with insufficient antenna installation space.

Huawei's unique Blade AAU, which prides itself on "ultimate simplicity", aims to reduce operators' TCO and investment in hardware and sites."

Blade AAU integrates the active 5G AAU and passive 2G/3G/4G antennas into one box and constrains the total height around 2 meters to support all sub-6 GHz frequency bands. Operators can use it to replace 3G/4G antennas to facilitate 5G deployment with a single antenna space.

In addition, the integrated design greatly simplifies site installation, which in turn improves 5G construction efficiency, accelerating overall deployment. Favored by operators since its release, this product has been put into commercial use on commercial networks in Switzerland and China.

Industry's First Commercial DSS Solution, Enabling Fast FDD NR Deployment

2020 will see large-scale 5G deployment worldwide. Apart from the mainstream 5G deployment on mid-band spectrums, operators can also deploy 5G networks on sub-3 GHz FDD to achieve fast 5G coverage.

For new FDD spectrums, Huawei's suggestion is direct 5G deployment on them to significantly improve the FDD spectral efficiency with NR technologies.

It is proven that NR operating at an FDD frequency can deliver an impressive improvement in user experience compared to that of LTE. For existing FDD spectrums, Huawei's 1 ms dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) solution can be adopted.

This technology dynamically allocates spectrum resources in milliseconds based on LTE and 5G service and traffic requirements, maximizing spectral efficiency.

"In November 2019, Huawei DSS was put into commercial use in Europe. Until now, our customers have 100 million legacy FDD RRUs that can be adapted efficiently to 5G using this solution," said Yang Chaobin.

Cutting-Edge Algorithm Enables Leading Network Performance

"Huawei has undergone extensive R&D, innovation, and commercial adoption in Massive MIMO. We have complete product portfolios and state-of-the-art algorithms to keep our Massive MIMO performance unrivaled.

In terms of software algorithms, Huawei has MU-MIMO, SRS, full-channel beamforming and more to provide optimal capacity, coverage and user experiences.

In 2019, Huawei helped LG U+ in South Korea, EE in the UK, and Sunrise in Switzerland to deploy 5G commercial networks.

In the third-party network performance tests conducted by RootMetrics and Connect, Huawei helped its operators rank No.1 in user experience, with an average downlink rate of 1.5 to 2 times higher than that of competitors' networks, which further demonstrates Huawei's superior Massive MIMO performance in actual commercial use," said Yang Chaobin.

Low Energy Consumption Makes Green 5G

Energy efficiency is another prerequisite for the sustainable and healthy development of mobile communications networks, particularly for 5G.

Huawei provides complete energy-saving solutions. They leverage innovative product technologies, new site forms, and AI-based network-wide coordination to reduce per-bit 5G power consumption.

Huawei resorts to innovative chip process design and algorithms, high-quality hardware materials, and advanced heat dissipation technologies to deliver 50 times larger cell capacity with the same energy consumption for 5G AAUs in comparison to 4G RRUs.

In addition, the AI-based coordinated energy-saving solution maintains satisfactory KPIs in different scenarios, whilst leveraging symbol, channel, or carrier shutdown across network modes and frequency bands based on service requirements to achieve more refined and accurate energy saving at the network-level.

E2E NSA/SA Converged Solution for Future Industry Digitalization

"5G is not only about providing a better experience for all end users. It is also pivotal for industry digitization, which sets 5G apart from its previous generations.

3GPP Release 16 is about to be finalized this year, and by then 5G will have more comprehensive capabilities for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC).

It has become a common understanding in the industry that SA is the ultimate architecture of the 5G network. Huawei supports both NSA and SA from end to end in terms of the radio access network, core network, chipset, and terminal, which will further help operators build full-service capabilities for consumers, homes, and all industries," said Yang Chaobin.

Unique E2E SUL to Unlock UL Experience and Latency for Industry Needs

The traditional TDD system design focuses on eMBB requirements, of which the downlink capability is much higher than the uplink capability, thus it would fail to meet the requirements of large uplink capability and low latency for industry applications, such as a 4K/8K live broadcast.

To address this issue, Huawei has launched the innovative end to end Super Uplink solution. It coordinates TDD and FDD spectrums to unlock the uplink capabilities and significantly reduce latency.

In addition, it can enable the TDD system to work with Full SUL bands to significantly improve uplink capabilities. The test results on telecom operators' networks show that it reduces latency by 30% and increases the uplink rate by up to four times. The 3GPP organization has officially accepted this innovative technology.

E2E Network Slicing Solution Facilitates Industry Digitalization

To better support industrial digitalization, Huawei has launched the end-to-end slicing solution that spans the radio access network, core network, transport network, and terminals.

Telecom operators and industry customers can enable diversified services on demand and provide guaranteed high bandwidth and low latency to secure business success.

The solution can be applied to a variety of industry scenarios, such as telemedicine, smart port, smart factory, and cloud AR/AR. Overall, this allows industry users to reduce costs and improve efficiency, whilst simultaneously enabling telecom operators to explore new markets.

"Every new generation of mobile communications technologies is developed to offer more applications and a better experience. 5G is no exception.

5G coverage must be good enough to provide an excellent experience, and 5G experience must be better than any of the previous generations. Huawei's products and solutions are committed to carrying forward this mission.

2020 will be a key year for 5G to be put into commercial use on a larger scale. “No one can whistle a symphony, it takes an orchestra to play it.”

We hope to work with global partners to continuously carry out technology and application innovations, which utilize 5G as the connection platform, together with AI and Cloud technologies, to jointly build a healthy, viable, and sustainable digital ecosystem," said Yang Chaobin.