Huawei Wants Industry Cooperation For Mobile Network Research

Huawei has called for the mobile industry to come together to develop mobile broadband technologies that can help power the personal and business applications promised by the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G.

The Chinese network equipment manufacturer used the Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF) in Tokyo to detail the ‘X Labs’ research development platform – a set of initiatives aimed at bringing together operators, manufacturers and industry.

Rotating CEO Ken Hu said there as a need for technical innovations and an open industry ecosystem, while acknowledging the role of cloud, big data and artificial intelligence (AI).

Network advances

“At Huawei, we aim to support and enable the mobile ecosystem. We have made a lot of progress, and we want to do more,” he declared.

X Labs will focus on three areas: people, verticals and households. ‘mLab’ will deal with the development of video, live streaming, virtual reality and augmented reality; fast growing areas that are generating significant amounts of network traffic.

‘vLab’ will focus on industry applications and ‘hlab’ on getting more households connected so operators can look at providing smart home services.

Huawei claims there are 1.3 billion properties without broadband and 300 million with speeds of less than 10Mbps. Given the difficulty and expense of delivering fixed broadband to these premises, Huawei believes fixed wireless, which has been used in the UK, might be the answer.

It has detailed the second generation of its WTTx (wireless to the x) technology with a view to helping operators serve these 1.6 billion premises. A five-fold increase in spectral efficiency using technology like Massive MIMO should improve network performance and WTTx 3.0 will provide in excess of 10Gbps during the 5G era.

Huawei also discussed a new small cell product, LampSite 3.0, which improves indoor coverage for operators. It can be deployed by the venue owners themselves. The platform has been put into action at Beijing Capital Airport with 2,200 products used and mobile traffic has risen 67 times in two years.

Last year at MBBF, Huawei urged operators not to miss the “IoT opportunity” and showcased its 4.5G network technology.

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