South Africa: Huawei unveils eLTE and Lampsite Solution

Huawei has unveiled a host of solutions, which include the Huawei Lampsite Solution as well as the eLTE Broadband Trunking Solution. At the unveiling, Guohui (Peter) Hu, Managing Director of Huawei Consumer Business, and Cao Ming, Vice President of Huawei Carrier Business were in attendance in order to showcase each solution.

At the unveiling, the telecom giant made it clear that it has indeed set its sights on South Africa. David Wang Shunli, director of public affairs and communication for Huawei Eastern and Southern Africa region, stated that Huawei has just over 7000 employees. 1000 of these employees are in South Africa. Shunli revealed that Huawei wants to increase the number of staff in South Africa, over the next 5 years, to 500.

While Huawei wants to launch Lampsite Solution as well as the eLTE Broadband Trunking Solution in South Africa as quickly as possible, the company is expected to measure the demand for each solution. An overview of each solution was presented at the unveiling, and can be found be below.

Huawei Lampsite Solution

According to the company, to build the ultimate mobile broadband (MBB) network, operators usually need to consider the challenges of macro networks, the fulfillment of blind points as well as outdoor hotspot capacity and indoor coverage demands. Demand for a high-speed, high-volume data experience is growing as more and more subscribers are introduced to the possibilities of using Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) mobile networks with their smartphones. Obstacles to ensuring the best experience are typically found in providing mobile broadband coverage indoors. According to Huawei, its LampSite solution quickly and effectively solves this indoor coverage problem to provide the best big data experience.

Using TD-LTE technology, a mobile data transmission technology that falls under the international standard of LTE, the solution is simple to deploy, provides high capacity, and supports operations and management (O&M) visibility as well as multiple bands and modes to realise ubiquitous mobile connectivity.

Thanks to its baseband unit’s (BBU) sharing feature, one fiber is used for several cells, saving up to 87% of fiber typically used for indoor deployments. The system connects with a single cable, and supports power over Ethernet (PoE) to simplify site construction and significantly reduce total deployment costs.

With multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO, the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance, being a vital feature for LTE connectivity for both outdoor and indoor, the usage of indoor LTE traffic is usually affected when MIMO is deployed in an outdoor LTE. Traditionally, systems only have one antenna and to support indoor MIMO, another couple of systems are required. Huawei’s LampSite solution is able to support MIMO with one independent system.

According to the company, its Lampsite solution also supports multi frequencies and multiple modes. For example, if an operator deploys the Lampsite solution with 3G connectivity, a new module can be inserted when a 4G upgrade is required at a later stage. There is no need to rewire the system.

Additionally, Huawei’s LampSite solution supports auto synergy for indoor and outdoor. It ranges over several features such as self-organising networks (SON) technology (which enables networks to organise and optimise their performance), neighbor cell auto increasing/decreasing for outdoor and indoor, power of pilot spectrum channel auto regulation, historical failure switching reason analysis and parameter optimization.

Huawei ‘s LampSite solution plays an important role in Huawei’s commitment to strengthen MBB pipe profitability, wireless network performance and user experience with ubiquitous broadband, on-demand and orchestrated network capabilities.

Huawei eLTE Broadband Trunking Solution

According to Huawei, it has combined the most powerful Mobile Broadband (MBB) technology and features typical narrow band voice trunking radio systems to introduce the world’s first 100 megabyte professional broadband trunking solution based within a single converged LTE architecture. This technology is specially designed for efficient mission-critical communications in governments, railway systems, airports, ports, power grids, as well as oil and mining industries.

Huawei’s eLTE broadband trunking solution introduces a new and efficient way for sectors to communicate securely and reliably with each other and is changing the way people respond and collaborate with each other in emergency management environments.

The company explained that its eLTE solution not only instantly realises the reliability of a traditional Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) network, but also incorporates broadband service delivery, such as images, data, and video. This means that emergency response teams are now able to access or upload real-time video and other multimedia data. They no longer need to rely on voice communication alone to handle critical incidents.

Huawei’s eLTE devices are equipped with a multitude of functions such as HD video cameras and GPS location tracking to help help emergency teams respond quickly, efficiently and with more information at hand. These devices can also be adapted to a variety of harsh environments with resistance to extreme temperatures, in order to maintain essential connection and communication in critical situations. They still retain functionality after being submerged in flood environments, or if dropped hundreds of times. They can also be manufactured as water-proof, dust-proof, shock-proof and explosion-proof units

Huawei’s waterproof broadband trunking terminal, EP680, maintained high quality voice and video transmission while submerged in a simulated flood environment.

Since Huawei’s 4G-based eLTE solution integrates voice trunking, video dispatch, video surveillance and location services into a single, converged wireless broadband communication platform with carrier grade reliability and redundancy features, it provides an ideal shared broadband network for multiple units to exercise control and create synergy in managing communications.

Additionally, the solution is extremely versatile when it comes to accommodating different network sizes. It can be tailored according to customers’ network needs; from full systems in a back-pack, inside emergency response vehicles or traditional static systems for office campuses, ports and harbours, mines, airports and cities, or even for nationwide coverage.

With over 20 years of experience in the ICT industry and supplying into the Mission Critical Communications market for over 18 years, Huawei provides an end-to-end eLTE solution from chipset research and development to terminal devices.

Darryl Linington