[Xi'an, China, June 26, 2018] During the Huawei User Group Meeting 2018, Huawei released the FDD LTE SPACE solution with over 20 carriers from all over the world. The SPACE solution enables the evolution of 5G era LTE networks by improving LTE coverage, capacity, user experience, and service innovation. LTE has become an All-Business-Connected Network for a full set of industries in the society.

launch ceremony of SPACE solution

5G-era LTE Becoming an All Business Connected Network

2G and 3G used to be the infrastructure networks for wireless communications with voice service as the core service. As consumer requirements diversified, data service has replaced voice as the core service. At the same time, as the concurrent networks of 2G, 3G, and 4G are complex and hard to maintain, operators hope to carry all services on one network. Operators around the world have centered their investment and maintenance resources on the LTE network. Some of them have begun to consider shutting down the existing 2G and 3G networks or retaining only a small amount of investment to maintain the 2G and 3G networks.

LTE has evolved from R8, R9, R10, LTE-Advanced, LTE-Advanced Pro to the current Release 15. The evolution will continue, in terms of capacity, peak experience, latency, and connectivity, enabling LTE to be an indispensable part of future networks.

According to GSMA, by 2018, LTE services are available in over 300 countries and regions around the globe. It is estimated that by 2021, 79% of the mobile data traffic will be carried on the LTE network. Over a decade's development, LTE has now become a well-proven technology, providing all services that the legacy 2G/3G networks can offer. It has a well-formed industry chain and sufficient chips and commercial terminals.

"It will be a future-proof trend to carry both data and voice services on the 5G-era LTE network. LTE will create a golden decade for operators' development."

S.P.A.C.E Solution Enabling the Evolution of the 5G-era LTE Network from Five Directions

The newly released SPACE solution is based on 3GPP Release 15 and can help operators build All-Business-Connected LTE Network. This solution enables Services, Pervasive Coverage, Automation, Capacity Boosting, and Smooth Evolution .

S = Service. A better connected world is just around the corner. SPACE will continue to increase the connected fields, covering the whole process of new service roll-out from prototype incubation to business scale expansion. With cellular IoT technologies (enhanced NB-IoT and eMTC), a single cell is able to maintain a maximum of 50,000 connections. Coverage, power consumption, mobility, uplink data rates, capacity, and additional aspects will be further enhanced, allowing for more connections between people and things (and also between things and things) and exploration into a more diverse list of vertical industries. By using unique CPE and achieving a maximum of 5-time increase in spectrum efficiency by MIMO technology, site capacity will be increased by 10 times. WTTx suite enables precise provision and expansion on-demand, and helps operator quickly launch services. Now, WTTx is exploring the business like WTTe, WTTc, and WTTs. By optimizing mechanisms for latency-sensitive services and using terminal coordination, the average air interface latency of services is reduced to 50ms. By introducing Short TTI, the scheduling period for the air interface frames is further shortened, reducing the average air interface latency to 20 ms. Latency will become the third important user experience KPI after capacity and coverage. Shorter latency will greatly improve user experience of mobile games, red envelop grabbing, remote driving, LTE-V, and additional services, and support more low-latency services (such as remote control and V2X). P = Pervasive Coverage. By 2021, LTE networks will serve 82% of the world's population. SPACE incorporates the ‘AnySite‘ solution for coverage availability in five typical scenarios, including urban hotspot, residential area, indoor coverage holes, rural area and Railway, realize ubiquitous LTE coverage and lower the cost of new building site. AnySite is characterized by 3 highlights. First, it features easy site acquisition, small size, easy deployment, and environment friendliness; Second, Hybrid wireless backhaul (Licensed Plus unlicensed) will be introduced for density coverage; Third, innovative Bridge RU will increase the signal quality and benefit for depth indoor coverage (like high-rise elevator rooms).

A = Automation. Based on Huawei's unparalleled SingleRAN Pro platform, SPACE realizes intelligent wireless networks enabled with automatic management. The 5G era presents operators with unprecedented challenges. Network resource management is more complex than ever due to the co-existence of multiple RATs and various services. Meanwhile, differentiated QoS assurance for emerging vertical industry services is another major issue that operators must handle. SPACE enables 3 levels of automation for effective network management, including site automation, network intelligence, and service agility, helping operators build intelligent LTE networks with lower OPEX.

C = Capacity Boosting. Future service requirements for capacity will increase. In China and Thailand, the capacity bottleneck also appeared in hotspot areas. SPACE increases the network capacity by 10 times, dependent on the key technology, like multi-antenna (including 4T4R, 8T8R, and Massive MIMO), multi-band, multi-sector, and site densification. SPACE also provides scenario-specific capacity solutions to address the issue of uneven traffic distribution across operators' networks. With 4R terminals becoming an industry consensus, 4T4R has become the basic configuration for 5G-oriented networks. Operators will benefit from early deployment. With the six-sector solution, the capacity is further improved. 4T4R and the six-sector solution release the traffic in hotspot areas. Massive MIMO and TM9 fulfill traffic requirements in ultra-high hotspot areas.

E = Evolution. Based on the SingleRAN Pro platform, SPACE provides a unified hardware platform to quickly and efficiently build 5G target networks that are backward compatible with 2G, 3G, and 4G networks, so as to maximize return on investment of operators' live networks. In addition, it supports flexible network architecture in non-standalone (NSA) networking. Flexible spectrum sharing between LTE and 5G new radio (NR) maximizes resource efficiency and ensures excellent service experience in the 5G era.

According to Huawei's evaluation, after the SPACE solution is deployed, LTE can achieve a speed of 50 Mbps anytime anywhere, air interface latency of as low as 20 ms, and a maximum of 50,000 connections per cell. The LTE network capability can meet the requirements of over 80% services and is therefore qualified for an All-Business-Connected network.

Chen Chuanfei, Vice President of Huawei LTE FDD Product Line, said, "The first complete commercial version of SPACE will be launched in 2019, helping operators start to construct All Business Connected @LTE. Operators' LTE networks will enter the All-Business-Connected era by deploying or upgrading to commercial versions that support SPACE. Based on Huawei's unparalleled SingleRAN Pro platform, SPACE will help operators provide a mobile network with premium user experience, meet the requirements of various services, and bring more space growth of mobile operator."