Huawei ‘4.5G’ technology supports advanced services, opens up new verticals
BARCELONA, Spain – As mobile operators continue to look for new revenue streams, attendees at Huawei’s 4.G Summit agreed ultrareliable LTE networks could create exciting opportunities in diverse vertical markets.
Huawei is pushing its “4.5G” technology solution as a way to extend the lifespan of LTE while building a bridge toward 5G; 4.5G is based on 3GPP’s LTE-Advanced Pro standard, which was adopted in October 2015.
During the event, held the day before the Feb. 22 kick off of Mobile World Congress, EE’s director of radio access networks Mansoor Hanif discussed the business value created through the deployment of more innovative LTE networks.
Specific to ultrareliability, Hanif rhetorically asked “why is it so important? I believe we can, today, aspire to 100% reliable networks. That is a significant game changer. If our networks can work all the time and reliably, we can take over a lot of vertical industries and that’s a massive amount of revenues for us.”
Hanif also touched on the need for edge computing, which is regarded as a key to bolstering end user experience.
“Where do our customers live? They don’t live in the core; they don’t live in the data center,” Hanif said. “They live at the edge of the network. There is no other technology you will ever hear of that will do so much to improve the customer experience than edge computing. You leverage the proximity to create value.”
Huawei’s 4.5G solution includes advancements from “4G” including support for small cell dual connectivity, carrier aggregation and other features designed to boost throughput. Working with EE and Qualcomm, Huawei said it achieved downlink speeds of 410 megabits per second via tricarrier aggregation using 20 megahertz in the 1800 MHz band, 20 megahertz in the 2.6 GHz band and 15 megahertz in the 2.6 GHz band. The technology was showcased in February 2015 at Wembley Stadium and is commercially available in parts of London.
Operators have demonstrated Huawei’s 4.5G technology in Canada, Norway, Germany, Kuwait, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, China and Singapore among other nations. Huawei’s newly unveiled GigaRadio is key to 4.5G, according to the company. The product is significantly smaller than other options and 50% faster, the company said.
Ahead of Mobile World Congress, Huawei president of wireless marketing operations Qiu Heng told journalists and analysts, “Huawei is too modest to say the GigaRadio is one year ahead of the industry. We are far more than one year ahead. That is my feeling.”
