ZTE unveiled a full series of 5G base stations at Mobile World Congress 2018, marking a milestone for the technological innovation of wireless base stations and facilitating commercial 5G deployment.

This new generation of 5G high and low frequency active array units (AAU) supports the 3GPP 5G NR and mainstream 5G spectrum used in the industry. Adopting key 5G technologies, such as massive MIMO, beam tracking and beam forming, the AAU is fully applicable to the diversified scenarios of commercial 5G deployments.

ZTE’s 5G high/low frequency AAU has passed national 5G tests in China and has been evaluated in 5G tests by operators around the world. Compared with the previous generation of products, the new 5G high/low frequency AAU is fully compliant with 3GPP standards and commercially available.

Characterized by the highest level of integration, smallest volume, lightest weight and high bandwidth, the ZTE 5G low frequency AAU achieved a record peak throughput in a single cell, reaching 19 Gbps in the low frequency enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) test scenario during national 5G tests in China.

The ZTE high-frequency AAU is the smallest, high power AAU in the industry. Its compact and easy-to-install design made ZTE the first to complete 5G tests at 26 GHz in China.

NG BBU with Industry’s Largest Capacity

At MWC 2018, ZTE released the first NG baseband unit (BBU) in the industry. As the upgraded version of the IT BBU, which is the world's first SDN/NFV-based 5G wireless access product released in 2017, the ZTE NG BBU is the most powerful 2U NG BBU with the highest capacity. With advanced SDN/NFV virtualization technologies, the ZTE NG BBU is compatible with 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G and also supports C-RANs, D-RANs and 5G CUs/DUs. It has multiple interfaces and supports pre-maintenance. The NG BBU-based 4G/5G hybrid network and multi-mode network help operators flexibly deploy vertical services and achieve multi-scenario deployments, accelerating network deployment and optimization, while reducing TCO.

First 4G/5G Dual-Mode RRU in the Industry

The industry’s first dual-mode, dual-frequency, 4G/5G RRU supports 4G single mode, 5G single mode and 4G/5G convergence, ensuring the smooth evolution of operators' networks to 5G. Featuring a compact design and easy installation, it greatly helps operators save hardware cost and improve network stability. The single fiber solution can reduce the fiber rental costs by 75 percent and significantly decrease operators' total cost of ownership without affecting the transmission of big data.

Based on the self-developed, high performance 5G soft-baseband chips and digital intermediate-frequency chips, the ZTE 5G base stations can provide extremely high capacity and support multiple systems and key 5G technologies.

In 2017, ZTE worked with leading operators such as China Mobile and Wind Tre in 5G tests. ZTE’s first-generation 5G full series of pre-commercial base stations passed the national Phase II 5G tests in China, with the test indicators far superior to those specified by the ITU. Together with China Mobile and Qualcomm, ZTE performed the world's first inter-operability device testing (IoDT) based on 3GPP R15 standards.