ZTE Announces New Milestone in Next-Generation Radio Access Network Research

- ZTE and partner successfully complete the world’s first pre-commercial test of D-MIMO (distributed multiple input multiple output) technology;

- New D-MIMO technology based on ZTE’s Cloud Radio solution capable of increasing data rate nine times at cell-edge to optimize wireless network performance

12 November 2015, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, announced the company made a significant breakthrough in research on next-generation radio access networks by completing the world’s first pre-commercial test of D-MIMO (distributed multiple input and multiple output) technology.

The field test conducted jointly by ZTE and a partner, demonstrated an up-to-9 times increase in data rate at the cell edge through the use of D-MIMO technology based on ZTE’s proprietary Cloud Radio solution. The outdoor part of the test covered single-user and multiple-user scenarios in an environment with multiple overlapping base stations, and used commercially-available mobile device terminals.

The Coherent-Joint Transmission technology used in ZTE’s new D-MIMO system ensures full phase synchronization among base stations, so that the jointly transmitted signal is amplified to the maximum level as it arrives at the antenna of a user terminal, minimizing interference with other terminals. Compared with the legacy Non-Coherent-JT technology, Coherent-JT provides 3 dB of additional gain at the antenna of a target user terminal and forms null steering at the antennas of other user terminals to minimize signal interference, achieving multi-user joint transmission (MU-JT).

As a mobile communications system typically contains many base stations, interference cause degraded signaling at the cell edge, affecting user experience. D-MIMO technology can effectively improve the data rate at the cell edge through coordinated transmission among base stations, resolving a major challenge facing operators.

The indoor D-MIMO test result shows that the MU-JT technology can form null steering toward multiple users to guarantee good multi-user joint transmission in an enclosed and small space. The service data rate of a single testing cell has been at least quadrupled in an ideal non-interference situation, and a number of testing cells have enhanced their resistance to interference by more than a hundred times.

The successful D-MIMO further strengthens ZTE’s first-mover advantage in the development of next-generation radio access technologies. In 2012, ZTE unveiled the Cloud Radio solution for dynamic coordination of transmission networks for optimization of cell-edge performance.

ZTE is also a global leader in the development of Massive MIMO technology, which is proven to increase data rates both in the center of and at the edge of a cell through higher spectral efficiency. Massive MIMO can be deployed seamlessly alongside the Cloud Radio solution, and is part of ZTE’s proprietary Pre5G solution, which emulates the behavior of future 5G networks on existing 4G LTE network infrastructure.

This month, ZTE announced the opening of a new R&D center in Tokyo to further strengthen the company’s world-class research on 5G and other next-generation network technologies.