ZTE announced that working with China Mobile, China Mobile Zhejiang and the China Mobile Jiaxing Branch it has completed the commercial deployment and multi-scenario test verification of 3D-MIMO technology utilising its Pre5G Massive MIMO solution in Jiaxing.
China Mobile and ZTE jointly completed what was believe to be the first 3D-MIMO field verification in 2015. Subsequently, to enhance 4G network performance and the user experience, since December 2016 China Mobile and ZTE have been deploying a new generation of broadband 3D-MIMO base stations in Jiaxing. The partners have also conducted testing of the technology for scenarios such as high-traffic locations in universities and 3D coverage in high-rise residential buildings.
ZTE noted that universities may present high-traffic and high-interference scenarios, as well as demands in terms of single-user traffic, therefore China Mobile has conducted verification testing in such locations. 3D-MIMO can offer a solution to address this issue, and implementing 5G massive MIMO technology in 4G networks can maximise utilisation of existing spectrum and enhance 4G network speed and capacity.
By increasing downlink capacity by up to a claimed 3-5x and uplink capacity by up to 4-6x, the solution can deliver 5G-like performance on 4G LTE user equipment.
ZTE stated that for the 3D-MIMO site Jiaxing, using the three carriers on the 3D-MIMO site the downlink field rate reached 1 Gbit/s, around 3x that of macro base stations, while uplink performance has increased to provide a peak rate of 237 Mbit/s, 8x that of macro base stations. By sharing the traffic of super-busy cells, the 3D-MIMO site helps to reduce the resource occupancy of 8T macro-station cells and improve service throughput.
Test results for the Jiaxing 3D-MIMO site showed that, compared to co-frequency 8T macro stations providing the same coverage, the uplink and downlink spectrum efficiency of small-packet services (such as web page browsing and WeChat) can be increased by an average of 2-3x, while spectrum efficiency for large-packet services (such as file downloads) can be increased more than that. ZTE noted that up to 800 commercial users were in the cell during the tests.
In addition, ZTE stated that the results of previous verification testing in high-rise scenarios showed that, compared with 8T macro stations on the site, the 3D-MIMO base station can deliver vertical large-angle 3D coverage and enable both uplink and downlink rate gains in indoor weak/remote coverage points of up to 2-3x, while in weak coverage points at the cell edge the gains can be greater.
ZTE noted that in 2016 with China Mobile, 3D-MIMO pre-commercial verification was conducted in 29 provinces and 50 cities, with both companies working to advance the development of 3D-MIMO technology.
