Huawei's SingleRAN Pro: Combining Simplicity, Openness to Expand 5G Innovation

Huawei's SingleRAN Pro solution offers an open, simplified networking concept to help operators roll out commercial 5G networks with speed and prosper. Peter Zhou, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Huawei Wireless Solution, highlighted the solution at the Huawei Global Analyst Summit (HAS).

The 5G game is well and truly on. Nations around the globe are fast-tracking the commercialization of their 5G networks and distributing spectrum as more and more devices become 5G-capable.

The first major change in consumers' daily lives will be Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), which will lead the industry digital transformation. With 5G networks serving as infrastructure for information and communications, technology companies will need to be futureproof and capable of responding to societal needs.

Operators need to act quickly and efficiently to meet current demand, whilst ensuring networks are flexible and adaptive to rise to future challenges. SingleRAN Pro aims to streamline the upgrade to integrated networks to allow for quick 5G deployment through ‘simplified sites’, ‘simplified networks’ and ‘simplified operations and maintenance’.

Simplified Sites

For large outdoor sites, Huawei is launching the Super Blade Site solution, which uses a unique Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip design to improve integration and allows for a larger-bandwidth, multi-channel 5G base stations which can be lighter and smaller in size, whilst delivering a larger capacity. It uses a 1+1 antenna to lay the foundations for 5G development and an outdoor modular design that makes Super Blade Site ideal for greenfield macro sites, rooftops, and new poles.

The simplified sites make construction far less complex and slashes the total costs of operation (TCO). For smaller indoor cells, there is also the 5G LampSite which uses digital indoor system (DIS) architecture for faster cell deployment.

Simplified Networks

CloudAIR, SuperBAND and Massive MIMO will simplify full-service 4G network construction and commercial 5G deployment to offer combined 4G and 5G networks over the next decade. CloudAIR will help gradually phase out 2G and 3G networks and supports concurrent 4G and 5G services across shared spectrum bands to avoid conflicts between the different network generations. SuperBAND and Massive MIMO upgrade 4G to offer a 5G-like experience and are both 5G-ready.

Simplified Operations and Maintenance

There are five levels of mobile network automation. The current technology is at around Level 2 and is expected to graduate to Level 3 by 2022. Huawei's MBB Automation Engine (MAE) and super base stations aim to support this automation and make network maintenance more application-focused, automatically encapsulating complex content such as network configurations, optimization and maintenance. Allowing for operations and maintenance to be 10 times more efficient while improving service provision five-fold and boosting network performance by 20%.

SingleRAN Pro also makes 5G networks more open and agile for future success via ‘open sites’, ‘open networks’ and ‘open ecosystems’.

Open Sites

Traditional communication base stations are deployed in cabinets, but to ensure space for more 5G sites in the future, modern stations must be able to utilize an array of site resources.

The first step towards this is switching out cabinets for modular designs and unified physical installation interfaces, so sites can be easily combined. Huawei plans to share its design standards for interfaces, heat dissipation and traditional site weights to third parties -- such as lamp pole suppliers, tower companies and the public sector -- who can then design their own services based on the standards. This will allow for scheduled resource use, resulting in reduced site costs. Open sites will also have access to social resources through the re-use of existing sites, such as wooden poles.

Open Networks

Huawei released its three-layer automation architecture at the 2018 Global Mobile Broadband Forum, opening up APIs to operators and third parties. Operators can then customize the APIs based on their own service workflows to manage their networks more efficiently and with more flexibility.

Open Ecosystems

Huawei Wireless X Labs and OpenLab are cooperating with global industry partners to explore future opportunities in device-pipe-cloud coordination. Huawei aims to help solve Cloud VR infrastructure and WAN (Wide Area Network) adaptation issues by offering developers a free Cloud VR development suite, connection service and supporting a developer community. In this way, developers can migrate their VR service from local servers to the cloud.

Huawei has already hosted a Cloud VR roadshow throughout China, and held a 5G Cloud VR developer marathon in Europe to share its 5G experience with industry partners.

"Huawei will continue its investment in 5G technologies and stick to transparent and open cooperation to build a credible ICT infrastructure," said Peter Zhou, CMO of Huawei's wireless network product line. "Huawei prides itself on taking complex issues and making them simple for customers. We are delighted to invite industry partners to join the 5G industry and develop a healthy 5G ecosystem."