ZTE first to complete all key technology tests for 5G network

NEW DELHI: China-based smartphone and telecom equipment giant ZTE has announced the completion of key network technology tests in the first phase of China's national 5G test with the "fastest speed, highest pass rate, " becoming the first vendor to pass all four tests at the same time.

In addition to the outstanding performance in the phase-1 key wireless technology tests, ZTE was praised once again by the organiser for its comprehensive network functions and performance, highlighting ZTE's extensive technological accumulation and strong research and development (R&D) capabilities in the 5G field.

China's 5G testing is the world's first 5G test guided and planned by the government, led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and implemented by China's IMT-2020 (5G) promotion group. The overall testing is divided into two phases: technology R&D tests from 2016 to 2018, and product R&D tests from 2018 to 2020.

The technology R&D testing can be further divided into three phases: key technology verification, technical solution verification, and system verification. China's 5G test involves comprehensive research and demonstration of key 5G technologies, and promotes the standardisation of competitive solutions, to accelerate the industrialisation process and achieve the goals of commercial 5G use in 2020.

These key network technology tests include four parts: Control plane and user plane separation, network function redesign, end-to-end network slicing, and mobile edge computing (MEC) technology. Typical demands in 5G service scenarios, such as high rate (single-user throughput higher than 10 Gbps), low delay (less than 0.1 millisecond), and massive connections (more than 1 million connections), have posed unprecedented challenges for existing network architectures and network elements.

"The new 5G network architecture launched by ZTE fully meets the demands of different industries in different application scenarios through network virtualisation and modularisation. This architecture uses the common processing hardware developed by ZTE, builds generic virtual resource pools by using data centre technology, and decouples network functions from network element devices based on a unified platform as a service (PaaS) ICT integration platform," the company said in a statement.

"To meet the service needs of different users in different application scenarios, this architecture supports flexible deployment of virtual network functions at the best locations in the network. This innovative 5G network architecture is the industry's first 5G network completely based on container virtualisation technology, the first distributed 5G network supporting multiple data centres, and the first 5G network supporting virtualisation and deployment of both the core network and access network. The excellent results of these tests once again verify ZTE's technical strength in 5G network products," it said.

Bo Gang, ZTE's general manager of 5G products, said, "The 5G network constructed by ZTE has a universal architecture and virtualisation features, focuses on users and services, and supports flexible customisation, dynamic deployment, and adaptive scalability. The 5G network provides strong support for a variety of service features in different scenarios, and lays a solid foundation for the evolution of the commercial communications network architecture of the future. ZTE's technical strength and accumulation will continue to be verified in practical tests and applications, laying a solid foundation for the commercial process of 5G in 2020."