ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of 
telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the mobile 
Internet, today announced that ZTE's CTO Wang Xiyu has shared his insights on 
the upcoming 5G era, focusing on "5G: Striving for Sustainable Growth amid 
Expectations".

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200120/2696519-1
(Caption: ZTE CTO Wang Xiyu)

The full article is as follows:

In 2019, more than 50 operators across the globe announced their commercial 
launch of 5G, with over 200,000 new 5G Sub-6GHz base stations deployed. 
However, 5G commercialization still remains in the initial stage of 
infrastructure development, as indicated by large-scale construction only in 
China, South Korea, the United States, and a few other countries in Europe and 
the Middle East. It is estimated that China will build more than 500,000 5G 
base stations in 2020, which will accelerate global 5G deployment. Currently, 
5G rollout has faced a number of challenges, which includes stricter 
requirements for base stations density, lower power consumption, and profitable 
business models. In addition, operators are seeking Return on Investment (RoI) 
from different vertical industries and a collaborative ecosystem for empowering 
all industries through 5G innovations.

A decade ago, 4G witnessed its worldwide prosperity despite uncertainties. 
Technological development in combination with innovative practices facilitated 
the commercial deployment of 4G, enabling the mobile internet to expedite 
social transformation. 

Technological development is promoting large-scale 5G commercialization 

Although the per-bit power consumption of 5G has dramatically decreased 
compared with that of 4G, the power efficiency still remains a key issue as 5G 
networks are expected to accelerate data processing rate by dozens of times. 
Chipsets are determinant to the performance, integration, power consumption, 
and other key parameters of products; therefore the foundry process of chipsets 
is crucial for product evolution. In the past, the foundry process of the 28 nm 
chipset available for both system equipment and mobile devices impelled 4G 
commercialization. Today, the 7 nm chipset is bound to drive 5G 
commercialization. With its self-developed 7 nm baseband chips and DIF chips, 
ZTE has made remarkable progress, including a 40% improvement in integration, a 
over 20% increase in end-to-end RF output power, and a 30% decrease in both 
power consumption and product weight. In 2020, these chipsets will be 
extensively used in 5G networks. In the next few years, continuous development 
of technologies, power consumption and product weight will continue to reduce. 
Therefore, the industry-leading development of 7nm/5nm chipsets will 
consolidate the leadership of mainstream vendors' 5G products. 

Coverage issue that brought by 5G higher spectrum band can be mitigated by 
using new technologies, such as Massive MIMO. Therefore, the 5G base station 
density in urban areas is similar to that of 4G base stations 

Multi-vendor integration is still the biggest challenge for 5GC 
commercialization. Currently, the Cloud-Native Architecture (CNA) and Service 
Based Architecture (SBA) have already achieved software-hardware decoupling and 
been put into commercial use. Network slicing can achieve automatic 
cross-deployment in the RAN, transport network, and core network built by one 
vendor. Operators are now looking into exploring multi-vendor integration to 
improve management domain standards facilitating automatic end-to-end 
deployment. The typical services that emerge in the 5GC commercialization, 
including 5G VoNR and SMS services, billing service, inter-RAT handover, and 
user data migration without change of SIM cards or numbers, have passed 
Interoperability Testing (IOT) and proven their capabilities to support eMBB 
scenarios. The standards for the vertical industry-oriented services such as 
high-precision 5G positioning, ESTUN, NPN, TSN, and 5G LAN are getting matured. 
ZTE has been a leading player in promoting 5GC commercialization based on 
mature 5GC products, field testing and network performance.   

In the initial stage of 5G development, the standards for 5G user equipment and 
5G systems are still under development. Therefore, vendors with end-to-end 5G 
capabilities become industry leaders in implementing unified commissioning and 
making better use of spectrum bands. In February 2019, ZTE released the Axon 10 
Pro 5G, China's first 5G smartphone in commercial use. By the end of 2019, the 
shipments of 5G smartphones to global customers had reached 5 million, 
accounting for 0.15% of the total smartphone shipments in the world. In the 
first quarter of 2020, ZTE intends to release a series of next-generation 
multimode multi-frequency 5G smartphones like the Axon 11. By the end of 2020, 
the lowest price of ZTE's 5G smartphones is anticipated to be USD 300, and the 
price of SA modules for vertical industries is also expected to decrease 
rapidly. With the wider coverage of 5G networks, global operators predict that 
by the end of 2020, the 5G user equipment around the world will reach 160 
million.

5G commercialization practices is impelling digital transformation 

ZTE is collaborating with vertical industry partners to maximize the value of 
each application. ZTE has explored the deep integration of 5G and vertical 
industries with Sany Heavy Industry, Xinhua News Agency, Tianjin Port, and 
Suning, jointly promoting the digital transformation of the industries.

Practices and explorations of 5G in vertical industries indicate that the 
combination of real and virtual scenarios is vital requirements raised by 
industries. In many 5G applications, video services are considered essential 
for digital transformation. Although 4G can support the transmission of text, 
data, pictures, and small videos, 5G ensures the reliable transmission of 
control signals and video services that feature interaction, real time, and 
deterministic latency. By promoting digitization in societies and putting 
digital control systems into applications, 5G can accelerate digital 
transformation. 

In the 2G era, operators concentrated on the construction of network 
infrastructure, to enjoy benefits exclusively, reaching their golden age when 
voice services predominated. In 3G and 4G eras, the weak correlation between 
contents and networks enabled OTT service providers to share benefits derived 
from the existing networks. Therefore, those who stayed forefront in the mobile 
internet and cloud computing became the industry giants. In the 5G era, the 
requirements for large bandwidth, high interaction, and deterministic latency 
make services more reliant on networks that enable contents, computing, and 
storage services. While 4G is a catalyst for the booming cloud computing, 5G 
will be the driving force for distributed, real-time and synchronized video 
services in the cloud computing era. Telecom operators would share benefits 
originating from the digital economy on the basis of their superior network 
resources and capability advantages. 

Partnering with leading enterprises in different industries, ZTE is dedicated 
to boosting the development of vertical industries through 5G and empowering 
all partners to enable core capabilities such as Cloud XR, AI, intelligent 
interconnection, high-precision positioning, and security capabilities for 
industrial applications. 

Application of essential software is advancing the establishment of a 
multi-vendor ecosystem 

Unlike that in the traditional consumer field, the digital transformation in 
vertical industries requires a more mature ecosystem and a dramatic uplift in 
reliability from 99.9% to 99.999% and even higher. Essential software, such as 
operating systems and databases is fundamental to the best use of both hardware 
and applications.

ZTE's NewStart operating system has been adopted in the key fields of telecom, 
high-speed rail, power, automotive and industrial automation. With more than 
200 million sets shipped to global customers, the NewStart operating system has 
become a fundamental technology that ensures reliable social evolution. 

In view of the increasing amount of data to be processed and the increasing 
business transactions in the 5G era, traditional network architecture with 
dedicated servers and centralized databases cannot support long-term service 
development with its currently limited system performance, scalability, and 
flexibility. The application of distributed databases, given their better 
performance and higher reliability, ensures rapid implementation of new 
technologies in the ecosystem, and removes the risks of shrinking ecosystem, 
the difficulties in talent cultivation, and the high costs brought by dedicated 
servers. GoldenDB, ZTE's distributed database, has been applied by major banks 
in their credit card systems to meet the stringent business requirements. 
Assisting customers in smoothly processing the spiking traffic in the Double 11 
(11 Nov) and Double 12 (12 Dec) Shopping Festivals, the database sets an 
example for other innovative database applications in diverse industries. 

ZTE is committed to facilitating the 5G commercialization and the development 
of information superhighway, advancing digital transformation by empowering 
vertical industries through 5G. By promoting its widely-used and mature 
NewStart operating system and GoldenDB database, the company is committed to 
striving for the prosperity of the ecosystem.

CONTACT: Margret Ma at +86-755-26775189 / +86-13641437743, Email: 
ma.gaili@zte.com.cn

SOURCE: ZTE Corporation

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   Link: https://iop.asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=355979

   Caption: ZTE CTO Wang Xiyu