ZTE announced that it believes it has become the first vendor to complete the mMTC field test in the second phase of China's 5G technology test, with results showing that the number of connected terminals was increased by nearly 600% to reach an equivalent density of 10 million connections and representing progress towards the Internet of Everything (IoE).
ZTE stated that it applies multi-user shared access (MUSA) technology to effectively increase the number of connections served, and thereby enable support for scenarios involving mass connectivity with low power consumption. By introducing short extended codes, the MUSA technology proposed by ZTE is claimed to be the only multi-access solution to allow high overload and eliminate scheduling operations and help increase the number of connections by between 3- and 6-fold.
The MUSA technology is designed to eliminate resource scheduling, and simplify synchronisation and power control. In addition, the technology uses advanced spread spectrum sequence and SIC technology to simplify terminal implementation and help reduce energy consumption.
ZTE noted that China's large-scale 5G test project entered its second phase, the technical solution verification phase, earlier in 2017. As part of this initiative, the test location in Huairou, Beijing, where 5G NR@Sub-6 GHz, 5G NR@mmWave, massive machine type communication (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low latency communications (uRLLC) test conditions are available, is designed to meet testing and research requirements prior to the large-scale commercial implementation of 5G.
The mMTC test is a key part of the second phase of China's 5G testing, and leveraging its patented frame structure design and MUSA technology ZTE has verified performance and staged a symbolic demonstration to promote 5G technologies for scenarios that require massive connectivity and low power consumption.
ZTE stated that mMTC is one of three application scenarios identified by the ITU-R, with a key performance indicator of 5G networks achieving a density of 1,000,000 connections per square km. The provision of mass connections presents a challenge in 5G networks, as in a traditional mobile network if a large number of terminals initiate service large amounts of scheduling resources and power are consumed. Therefore, addressing these issues is a prerequisite for enabling mass connections.Following the completion of the tests in the first phase of China's 5G technology R&D test, ZTE is currently engaged in the second-phase. Utilising the latest IT baseband unit (BBU), 5G multi-band active antenna unit (AAU) and new radio (NR) air interface technologies, ZTE has launched field performance testing designed to meet the performance requirements of seven application scenarios, including higher spectral efficiency, greater connection density, higher reliability and lower delay air interfaces.
