Network delivery is a core task in the telecommunications industry. Excellent and complete network delivery solutions and capabilities are often the keys to vendor success in the industrial competition. In addition to being a leader in global communications technology, ZTE also excels in network delivery. Over the past three decades, ZTE has delivered over 500 turnkey projects worldwide, built more than 4 million sites, and deployed more than 130,000 kilometers of outside plants. The company has provided quality products and efficient services for more than 2 billion users worldwide and obtained their high recognition.
In terms of 5G delivery, ZTE has gained its core competitiveness with decades of rich application experience combined with advanced technologies and its latest achievements.
Intelligent Tools
ZTE has been committed to researching intelligent 5G delivery and providing a complete end-to-end intelligent delivery tools covering network planning, installation and deployment, optimization, acceptance test, and operations to reduce the delivery difficulty and improve efficiency. Automatic integration center (AIC) is the new-generation intelligent end-to-end virtual integration tool platform that helps operators simplify network deployment, automate network operation, and provide excellent user experience.
Intelligent Network Planning
Due to the particularity of 5G Massive MIMO and other technologies, network planning—the first step in network delivery, must be accurate and reliable. ZTE has made significant innovations in intelligent traffic prediction, intelligent coverage prediction, intelligent antenna feed weight planning, and LTE inventory expansion, and has realized automated PCI and neighborhood planning. This makes network planning much more accurate than expected, and allows ZTE to lead the industry in network planning speed. ZTE can better match operator needs for rapid network construction.
Automated Network Commissioning
In the network deployment, the workload and complexity of commissioning big number of sites are very high, and the complexity of 5G NR makes the commissioning task more difficult. ZTE’s innovative solutions for automated installation, commissioning and upgrade can greatly simplify this task and improve the efficiency. ZTE has released BCT and image burning tools that can commission a 5G site in 30 minutes. The UniDeploy tool can achieve minimal deployment involving minimal installation and commissioning. It uses ZTE’s self-developed mobile app for easy site commissioning and acceptance. Cloud drive test can also be used for intelligent network optimization.
Intelligent Network Optimization
Network optimization, as the most demanding and difficult task for engineers in network delivery, is the key to a successful delivery project. Relying on revolutionary technological innovation, ZTE has achieved automation in network drive test and single-site optimization, bringing big savings in manpower costs. Through intelligent KPI degradation detection and root cause location, intelligent Massive MIMO antenna feed weight adaptation, intelligent industrial parameter calibration, and automatic capacity parameter optimization, engineers have become “versatile warriors” who can really solve a large number of technical on-site problems with intelligence tools.
Intelligent Operations
Operations run through the whole life cycle of a wireless network, and its operational ability often determines network competitiveness and user satisfaction. ZTE has made epoch-making progress in 5G network operations such as intelligent alarm root location, intelligent load balancing, intelligent optical path fault detection, and intelligent energy saving, which also lays a foundation for rapid delivery of more networks. ZTE’s self-developed UniCare—a very simple operations tool has realized unified release of universal functions, customized function development and user self-development, field automation, and intelligent operations.
Intelligent Project Management
Engineering project management system (EPMS), a digital project delivery solution independently developed by ZTE, is committed to creating anytime anywhere, collaborative, real-time, intelligent, visual and efficient (ACTIVE) digital delivery platform that makes project management more efficient.
ZTE has established an end-to-end engineering service capability system worldwide, and has professional teams covering project management, cooperative partners, and expertise in 5G project delivery. As of August 2019, ZTE had set up a team of nearly 2,000 5G delivery experts and formed a mechanism for continuous training and growth of 5G delivery talents, preparing sufficient resources for global 5G delivery.
At present, ZTE has established a three-dimensional network in more than 160 countries around the world, with one global customer support center and three sub-centers in Shanghai, Nanjing and Xi’an, six regional customer support centers (RCSC), 54 local customer support centers (LCSC), and 10,000 after-sales service engineers and 3,000 skill experts. These professionals are the core of ZTE 5G delivery. ZTE has also established a global flexible resource allocation mechanism that can quickly gather resources, establish teams and implement delivery for newly entered markets. The company provides customized technical implementation solutions to ensure smooth project delivery in various complex scenarios. Through years of experience, it has worked out a standard operating procedure (SOP) to ensure the quality and efficiency of project delivery. ZTE has a mature project management system, is a member of the PMI Council, and has won many PMI annual awards (Fig. 1).
The arrival of the 5G era concerned by the whole industry will promote the development of the telecom industry and bring about numerous changes in related vertical industries that are currently unpredictable. 5G delivery will play an important role that cannot be ignored. ZTE will help operators build quality 5G networks efficiently and work with them to move forward steadily in the 5G era.