Position: ZTE CL Evolution Solution Boosts CDMA Operators to Achieve More
1 CDMA Technology Evolution Route
According to global wireless communication subscribers development trend and wireless technology evolution trend, 2G, 3G and 4G technologies are not simple substitutional relations, but make up mutually and coexist harmoniously in the next 5 to 10 years.
Figure 1 Wireless Development Trend (Source: CDG)
At the end of 2008, Qualcomm finalised to terminate UMB technology research, and the global mainstream wireless mobile communication operators gradually focused on LTE and made it as the choice of 4G technology. Therefore, it became the most concerned problem of the traditional CDMA operators about how to successfully evolve from CDMA technology to LTE with minimum investment capital.
ZTE Corporation has initiated platform-based strategy two years ago, which laid a good foundation for CDMA/LTE evolution. Based on ZTE microTCA SDR platform, the HW architectures of all the wireless products are unified, avoiding the investment risk caused by technology evolution route. Meanwhile, the traditional CDMA/GSM/UMTS base stations supply goods in quantity, greatly reducing the LTE-evoluted HW cost and Lowering the CAPEX and OPEX for operators as well.
Figure 2 Unified Platform and Product Portfolios
2.1 Baseband Evolution Strategy
At the initial stage of C/L market development, the LTE BP board was mainly popularized. With the scale development of C/L market day by day, ZTE will roll out the CDMA/LTE common-mode BP board with higher integration.
Figure 3 Baseband Evolution Route
The traditional CDMA RF units are all Tx/2Rx products. In order to support MIMO based on the legacy system, then two RRUs combination is needed, aiming to realize the support to 2Tx/2Rx,
Meanwhile, ZTE develops CDMA/LTE common-mode RRU, and single RRU only can accomplish the coexistence networking of CDMA and LTE.
Figure 4 RF Evolution Route
Based on the aforesaid CDMA/LTE evolution strategy and combining the actual situation of the global CDMA network, we can summarize the following typical CDMA/LTE evolution application cases:
Phase One: the traditional multi-mode phase
The evolution from the traditional CDMA network to LTE can be accomplished by adding a traditional RRU aimed to realize MIMO and a LTE BP board in HW, and cooperating with SW upgrade.
Figure 5 Evolution Route at Traditional Multi-mode Phase
Phase Two: RF common-mode phase
In this phase, the CDMA/LTE common-mode RRU will be adopted for networking. The evolution from CDMA to LTE can be accomplished by adding a LTE BP board and upgrading SW.
Figure 6 Evolution Route at RF Common Mode Phase
Phase Three: Baseband common-mode phase
In this phase, the CDMA/LTE common-mode BP board and the CDMA/LTE common-mode RRU are directly adopted for networking. The evolution from CDMA to LTE is free from any HW change, but SW upgrade only.
Figure 7 Evolution Route at Baseband Common Mode Phase
With the further development of the current globalization trend and the communication industry going to maturity increasingly, the wireless communication standard evolution controversy is going to the unification, which is the inner demand on low cost operation of the telecommunications industry and also the intrinsic drive of LTE standard.
ZTE's prospective SDR solution ranking the first in the industry follows the trend of the communication industry, not only wining in the current CGU market, but also providing consistent low cost solution for the CDMA operators in the follow-up C/L evolution. Its customization operation philosophy thoroughly eliminates the troubles worried about for the future for CDMA operators.
