ZTE is collaborating with China Mobile Research Institute, China Transport Telecom & Information Group, the Beijing Branch of China Mobile and other partners to showcase what it calls the world’s first 5G NTN (Non-Terrestrial Network) field trial at the 5G-Advanced Industry Development Summit in Beijing.
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ZTE said in a press release that this brings achievement breakthroughs in two aspects, ultra-long distances as far as 36,000 km and direct connection between mobile phones, that are enabled by two innovations including dynamic compensation of big latency and RF data conversion between the satellite and terrestrial.The trial was end-to-end and demonstrated services such as short messages and voice services, both with satisfactory performances.
The trial included a comprehensive set of tests of the direct connection between the mobile phone and the satellite, which supports a network with ubiquitous connectivity, more use cases, highly integrated industry chains and low O&M costs.The trial was based on the 3GPP Release 17 and on a network architecture using high-orbit satellites for transparent forwarding to implement end-to-end link interconnection among terminals, satellites, terrestrial gateways, base stations, core networks and servers.The L-band satellite and terrestrial gateways, located between the NTN terminal and the base station, were responsible for air-interface message transmission. The terrestrial gateways were interconnected with the 5G NTN base station. The terminal was connected to the terrestrial core network and service platform through the satellite, gateways and NTN base station in turn to implement end-to-end service interconnection.
During this trial, communication cases such as synchronization, broadcasting, accessing and data transmission, and services such as short text messages and voice messages were successfully tested. The latency of 64-byte ping is about 4s.
The performance met the expectations, indicating the solution is very likely feasible. In the future, there will be emergency communication service pilot projects in Beijing, Yunnan and other provinces.
Together with the terrestrial network, the 5G non-terrestrial network (5G NTN) forms an integrated ubiquitous network with a variety of use cases, highly integrated industry chains and low O&M costs. It uses satellite communication for powerful coverage to meet people’s demands for better accessibility of the mobile internet around the world and provide emergency, marine, remote areas and IoT communication services, facilitating the comprehensive development of CHBN (Customer, Home, Business, New).The satellite telecommunication network can reuse the cellular network and significantly reduce terminal cost.
In addition, the number of cellular network base stations and centralized deployment can significantly reduce deployment and O&M costs.
In this new stage of 5G-Advanced, this end-to-end 5G NTN field trial’s success helps build a solid foundation for a direct phone-to-satellite communication business model. This service provides users with more reliable and consistent experiences and connects space, air, ground and sea, forming an integrated ubiquitous network.
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Separately, ZTE says they’ve produced the industry’s smallest 5G Core network product, dubbed the Mini5GC. The new Mini5GC features miniaturization, light weight, simple networking and ultra-high integration. The company states that it can well facilitate safe production, flexible adjustment of work sites, and efficient and accurate emergency rescue in mining areas.
This is part of its continued innovations in 5G core network products to boost the in-depth development of 5G private networks. For Mini5GC, the number of general network functions is customized from more than 10 to just four, and the network communication and resource occupation are optimized. Thus, a lightweight 5GC can be deployed on one 1U server.Moreover, the size of the server is reduced to A3 paper, and its weight is reduced to less than 5kg.
With high integration, the 5GC product has 5Gbps forwarding capability and excellent performance for the same size in the industry.
With simple deployment, the Mini5GC can adapt to any rack, and its power consumption is about 100 watts. Also, through pre-installation of software and hardware upon delivery, on-site one-click modification, and plug-and-play the required services can be quickly launched in several hours.To date, ZTE’s Mini5GC has carried out pilot verification in five typical fields, including mining, transportation, manufacturing and government affairs. ZTE and SHAANXI ZHIN TECHNOLOGY CO., have jointly built a mine-use 5GC based on the Mini5GC to provide in-place data distribution for underground mining, so as to improve mining service efficiency and provide a high-availability network to ensure safe production in the mining area.Moving forward, ZTE says it will work with more industry partners to integrate product innovation and business model innovation to help operators explore intelligent digital development and boost the prosperity of the 5G industries.
References:
https://www.telecomreviewasia.com/index.php/news/technology-news/2910-china-mobile-partners-with-zte-to-unveil-world-s-first-5g-ntn-field-trial
https://www.telecomreviewasia.com/index.php/news/technology-news/2916-zte-launches-industry-s-smallest-5gc-product
https://www.thefastmode.com/technology-solutions/27281-zte-unveils-light-weight-5gc-for-5g-private-network
https://sdnfv.zte.com.cn/en/news/2022/2/ZTE-5G-Common-Core-Aims-to-Improve-Digital-Economy
https://www.zte.com.cn/global/products/core_network/packet_core/202003251501/5G-Common-Core
