Foresight and Challenges
——Wonders in China Unicom's WCDMA Network

We are grateful for ZTE's devotion to the project, and hope it could make greater achievements in future and bring more stable and excellent mobile networks to Liaoning Unicom!

—Liaoning Unicom

ZTE has actively coordinated various resources to overcome many difficulties such as equipment delivery complexity and delay. 54 base stations were put into operation by March. By April 10, 201 base stations were put into service and 100% of the macro base stations were in service, satisfactorily meeting the branch's requirements for the WCDMA network.

—Henan Unicom

ZTE actively teamed up to accelerate the project progress. ZTE was the first supplier having delivered all equipments and made the first WCDMA call in China. Guangdong Unicom would like to thank ZTE for its great support.

—Guangdong Unicom

On January 6, 2009, as a result of the Chinese telecom industry reforming, former CNC and former China Unicom were merged into China United Network Communications Group Company Limited (shortened as China Unicom). It became the only Chinese telecom operator listed at the three exchanges in New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Until now, China Unicom has expanded its branches and offices in 31 Chinese provinces and many other countries and regions. China Unicom owns assets of 78 billion USD with 463,000 employees by the end of 2008.

On January 7, 2008, China Unicom was awarded WCDMA license. To seize a larger share of the Chinese telecom market where three operators exist, the construction and commercialization of China Unicom's WCDMA network has been an urgent task and a focal point.

ZTE actively participated in the rollout of China Unicom's WCDMA network and contracted for the construction of  211 RNCs and 24,014 NodeBs. The project commenced on February 2 and was to be completed in two phases. The first phase was to complete 60% of the total capacity of the network. It included 12 subprojects (provincial projects) and was to achieve the commercial launch on May 17th. The second phase had 18 subprojects (provincial projects). The entire network was to be completed on September 28.

8 months witnessed WCDMA construction

During the implementation of China Unicom's project, ZTE gained a good reputation by on-time delivery of successive milestones:

On February 28, China Unicom made the first 3G call;

On April 15, the network was ready for service in 12 cities,

On May 17, trial commercial launch was conducted in 12 cities of Phase 1,

On August 31, network quality were tested by China Unicom and third parties,

On September 28, nationwide commercialization was launched during the National Day holiday.

ZTE constructed  over  carrier sectors and installed of 26,000 sets equipment within 8 months, dutifully contributing to the quality 3G network of China Unicom.

ZTE outperformed all the other suppliers in the assessment jointly conducted by China Unicom and third parties. 18 cities' networks were qualified in the "55 Cities Test", 7 of which were built by ZTE. With 70% of "High Quality Network City", ZTE was 47% ahead of all the other vendors. Among 30 "High Quality Network City" in the "77 Cities Test", 10 were constructed by ZTE. With a passing rate of 71.4%, ZTE exceeded the second place by 20%.

KPI is a vital measurement to evaluate product quality and integrated network construction capacity. In the 1,200 km test in Shenzhen and Langfang, the drop call rate of networks was "0". In all the networks built by ZTE, 3G frequency-locking voice call drop rates are below 0.4%. Moreover, the WCDMA networks built by ZTE are characterized by strong anti-interference ability, minimized pilot pollution and so on. For example, in Shenzhen where strong interference exist, the difference between the proportion of RSCP≥-80dBm and the proportion of Tx_Power<-15dBm of ZTE was only 5.12%. The soft handoff rate of ZTE was only 27.59%, the lowest among the five suppliers.

A perfect showcase of maturity of WCDMA

How did ZTE successfully and speedily launched the commercialization of China Unicom WCDMA network with high quality? The secret lies in its reliable network optimization capability and sufficient resource reservation and supply.

Regarding the network optimization, take the 3G project of Shenzhen Unicom for example. To facilitate the network optimization, the maintenance and optimization were carried out simultaneously. The optimization tool R&D team developed tools on site based on actual network conditions. During the network optimization, the equipment failure rate was kept low and the coverage of base stations was good. As to frequency planning, appropriate wireless parameters are used to minimize network interference and ensure the network stability.

ZTE attached much importance on resource reservation. Starting from 2002, ZTE began to train contractors on UMTS base station installation, commissioning, network optimization, drive test, and operation and maintenance and conducted skill certification through qualification. In early 2008, based on its prediction for future market, ZTE restructured its WCDMA/GSM/CDMA wireless departments to ensure effective engagement of resources into the WCDMA network rollout.

ZTE's highly efficient supply also provided sound support for quick network implementation. 2,590 base stations were put into service within 3 months in Shenzhen. The engineering project kicked off on February 1 and the model base station has been established on February 6. Meanwhile China's first WCDMA call was made in different scenarios of macro base station, indoor distribution system  and distributed station. On February 15, all the main equipments were delivered to the sites; on February 20, all the auxiliary equipments were ready; on March 15, 80% of the base stations were installed; on April 17, 90% of the base stations were ready for service.

China Unicom highly recognize the excellent performance of ZTE and is confident in their future cooperation.