green telecom
TRANSCRIPT
HU
AW
EI CO
MM
UN
ICA
TED
EC 2008 ISSU
E 45
DEC 2008 ISSUE 45
Green telecomGreen world
O2: Fresh air and market share
Comium tapping into the African market
America Movil’s new start in Panama
Bell Canada: Big country, big choice
Sponsor: Huawei COMMUNICATE
Editorial Board,
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Consultants: Hu Houkun, Xu Zhijun, Xu Wenwei
Tao Jingwen, Wan Biao, Zhao Ming
Yu Xiangping, Li Shenzhuo
Editor-in -Chief: Gao Xianrui ([email protected])
Editors: Pan Tao, Yao Haifei, Huang Zhuojian
Xue Hua, Xu Peng, Li Xuefeng
Chen Yuhong, Liu Zhonglin, Xu Ping
Zhou Huajiao, Fan Ruijuan
Wang Hongjun, Zhou Shumin
Contributors:
Hou Jinlong, Zhang Qin, Chen Zhuangling
Yang Weimin, Lu Xingang, Xu Yan, Yan Yun
Yang Fang, Wang Jianhao, Mao Tianhua
Li Wei, Li Bo, Chen Shufeng, Zhao Yuan
Tel: +86 755 28780808
Fax: +86 755 28356180
Address: A10, Huawei Industrial Base,
Bantian, Longgang, Shenzhen,
China 518129
E-mail: [email protected]
Publication registration No.: Yue B No.10148
The information contained in this document is for reference purpose only, and is subject to change or withdrawal according to specific customer requirements and conditions.
Copyright © 2008 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.No part of this issue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written consent of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Several years ago, a Canadian environmental scientist snapped a picture of a pair of polar bears standing all alone on a melting piece of ice in the Bering Sea. It is claimed that, the cause for this pair of stranded polar bears being trapped at sea was the effect of global warming. Drifting many miles away from shore, the polar bears are facing an increasingly dangerous condition! It is also claimed that human beings will be in the same predicament, if something is not done to change global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave its harshest warning on global warming to date on February 2, 2008 in Paris. The panel stated that the earth’s average surface temperature had risen 0.74°C over the past 100 years and will probably increase by 1.1-6.4°C up to 2010. Global warming has become an unarguable fact.
The prime cause for the present environmental and climate deterioration is human activities, and all humanity will have to bear the consequences of their activities. Due to current environmental problems, the rapidly growing wireless network technologies will have to assume more social responsibilities. The mobile telecom industry is now taking a leading role in energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the numerous base stations that are scattered throughout the world, are depicted by environmentalists as being a leading cause for the increasing amount of ice melting in the South Pole. Activities like these are aggravating the environment and adding to the overall greenhouse effect. So, what should be done?
It’s nice to see that the whole mobile telecom industry is currently taking greater measures to improve this situation. As early as late 2007, China Mobile allied with 15 equipment suppliers to launch the Green Action Plan, and Vodafone declared that it will reduce its CO2 emissions by 50% before 2010. As one of the leading companies in the mobile telecom industry, Huawei was one of the first major companies to assign a large number of technical engineers to conduct research into and design a green base station many years ago. Currently, these green base stations are distributed in more than 100 networks deployed around the globe.
Do high environmental standards only have positive social effects, but not economic benefits for an enterprise? The Potter Hypothesis states that high environmental standards will not level down the enterprises’ profits; on the contrary, it will promote technological innovation and elevate their profits.
For green mobile network operators, the low energy consumption of green base stations not only decreases CO2 emissions indirectly, but it also helps to directly reduce power costs. The ABI consultation report states that energy expenditure is the hardest item to control in the total cost of ownership (TCO). Energy expenditure for some operators in parts of Africa amounts to half of the TCO. Therefore, it appears to be an inevitable choice for the telecom operators to deploy green mobile networks.
In the Oscar-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, the American former Vice President Al Gore claims: “Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that. With the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive, we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands. We just have to have the determination to make them happen.” In the words of the old African proverb, “when you pray, move your feet”.
So let’s now join hands and take action to protect the earth, our common homeland.
For a greener world
Tao Jingwen
President of Huawei Global Technical Sales Dept.
What’s inside:
Cover Story
11 O2: Fresh air and market shareO2 is dedicated to environmental protection and energy conservation in addition to continuously enhancing subscribers’ communication experiences. By adopting Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs, O2 is going to build a live and breathing network.
By Zhao Yuan
P.11 P.24
Voice from Operators
05 Bell Canada: Big country, big choiceBell Canada, currently the biggest CDMA EVDO operator in Canada, recently announced plans to deploy HSPA by 2010. Mr. Stephen Howe, CTO of Bell Mobility explains their consideration for this HSPA shift and many more.
By Julia Yao
02 APAC leading world in CDMA subscribers, revenue
04 Huawei records industry first, ships 1 billionth mobile softswitch license
Global Digest
01 T-Mobile to skip HSPA+, jump straight to LTE
20 Huawei gains soft power in green telecom
By Wang Tao, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of
Communications World Weekly
08 Comium tapping into the African market
By Julia Yao
Media Insight
17 Mobile networks go greenFrom Unstrung Insider
23 India Reliance opens the door to green communications
By Xu Yan
How to Operate
P.46 P.30P.17
Let’s COMMUNICATE beyond technology and share understandings of the latest industry trends,
successful operational cases, leading technologies and more. Based on in-depth analysis of the
matters that lie close to your heart, we will help you stay on top in the competitive telecom industry.
42 The green CDMA base stationBy Liu Silu
25 For the sake of Fire and IceBy Zhao Yuan
27 America Movil's new start in PanamaBy Sun Yiran
44 Constructing a green core networkBy Wu Yanning
46 Tackle the indoor coverage challenges
By Zhao Yanzhuo
48 Building eco-friendly bearer networkBy Liu Runing
29 Warid bridges the digital gulf in Pakistan
By Wang Yan & Zhang Jing
36 Creating green sitesBy Zhang Qiang
39 Making “green” telecom realAfter making a detailed analysis of the energy consumption characteristics of mobile networks, Huawei proposed specific solutions covering three operational scenarios of mobile networks: green access, green core network (CN), and the “6R” strategy.
By Huang Lu
Solution
31 China Mobile in actionIn 2007, China Mobile green-lighted the Green Action Plan as part of their ongoing commitment to reducing environmental impact. By using alternative energy and adopting cutting-edge technologies on BTSs and sites, they have quickly implemented new networks in China.
By Zhou Jianguo etc.
GLOBAL DIGEST
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 451
News
UK operators push mobile Internet with price cuts
Recently O2 UK slashed the
price of its stand alone 3G dongle
on a prepay tariff from £97.86
to £29.99, and has refreshed its
tariffs with three options now
available.
Customers can pay £2 a day
for 500MB of data, £7.50 a week
for 1GB or £15 a month for 3GB,
and a l l come with unl imited
Wi-Fi access via O2's partnership
with The Cloud.
After years of 3G hype and
the recent clearing of the fog of
disillusionment, mobile broadband
that has become an unexpected
runaway success.
Industry analyst and telecoms.com
parent, Inform Telecoms & Media,
notes that at the end of June there
were 14 million HSPA subscribers in
Europe, accounting for about 2.5%
of the total customer base, and
growing by 3 million every quarter.
Clearwire polishes up WiMAX brand
Clearwire said that in the coming
months, the Clear brand will replace
the Xohm service name previously
used by Sprint in the Baltimore area
and will apply to all mobile WiMAX
services to be offered by Clearwire
in the US. The company name will
remain Clearwire.
Under the deal between Sprint
and Clearwire, the company has
received USD3.2 billion in investments
from Comcast, Intel, Time Warner
Cable, Google and Bright House
Networks. The company will also
receive an additional investment from
Trilogy Equity Partners in the coming
months.
With the merger of assets
complete, Sprint has transferred its
entire 2.5GHz spectrum holdings
to Clearwire, giving the service
provider 100MHz or more of
spectrum in most markets across
the US.
North American wireless dodges economic crisisAlthough North America was
the first region to be affected by the
economic crisis and has been the
hardest hit, wireless operators' results
in the third quarter show how mobile
services have become indispensable
and two year contracts are protecting
the sector in the region.
US mobile operators added
3.9 million connections in the third
quarter and year on year connections
growth was 10%. Only Sprint Nextel
saw a decline in connections of
1.3 million that helped the other
operators continue to grow strongly.
Canada's wireless operators also
saw connections growth, with Rogers'
subscriber base growing 8% year on
year, Bell Canada growing 7% and Telus
growing 10%.
The North American market
also reported strong growth in data
services, with projections for more of
the same continuing into 2009, also
helping the regional mobile industry
to dodge the effects of the downturn.
T-Mobile to skip HSPA+, jump straight to LTET-Mobile has become the latest
operator to announce plans to skip
HSPA+ and transition straight to LTE,
prompting concerns for the future
of the HSPA+ and Mobile WiMAX
standards.
A number of major operators such
as Verizon Wireless and NTT DoCoMo
have already elected to skip straight
to LTE, with US operator Clearwire the
only remaining large-scale operator to
pin its hopes on WiMAX.
Ovum predicts that by 2013
there will be almost as many LTE
connections as WiMAX connections
worldwide, with 37.8 million LTE
subscribers versus 42.4 million
WiMAX subscribers, despite WiMAX
enjoying a two-year head start.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm has
announced it intends to stop investing
in the development of Ultra Mobile
Broadband (UMB), which had been
envisioned as a competitor to LTE.
Virgin America launches “Gogo” in-flight Wi-Fi service
Virgin America is hoping to
lure new passengers to its airline,
with a new in-flight Wi-Fi service
available on board its Airbus A320
aircraft.
“Gogo,” as the service is called,
allows passengers to surf the web,
use email and instant messaging,
download files, and connect to
secure networks. Internet-based
VoIP calling has been blocked by
the airline, however, in an attempt
to spare passengers the annoyance
of overhearing the conversations
of seat mates.
Gogo uses a i r - to -g round
technology from Aircell to connect
passengers to the Internet at DSL-
comparable speeds. It is available
on a pay-per-use basis at a cost of
USD9.95 or USD12.95 depending
on the duration of the flight.
China Unicom to launch trial WCDMA networkChina Unicom is reportedly
planning to launch its first trial
WCDMA network on December 31
2008, and is inviting users from the
city of Wuxi to participate in the
trial.
The company plans to launch
trial networks in at least seven
cities: Shanghai, Shenzen, Foshan,
Liuzhou, Zhengzhou, Baoding and
Wuxi, and install around 100 base
stations in each city, according to
an insider source quoted by the
Beijing Times.
Unicom intends to finish 3G
deployment in all major cities
before mid-2009, and begin
extending the service to medium-
sized cities before the end of 2009,
the source said.
China Unicom CEO Chang
Xiaobing separately told the
Times that he expects the Chinese
government to expedite the 3G
license issuing process.
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45 2
Data
2.7 billionJapanese operator NTT DOCOMO
struck a deal recently to acquire 26%
of India's sixth largest cellco, Tata
Teleservices, for USD2.7 billion. In
addition, DOCOMO said it also expects
to make a further offer for up to 20%
of the outstanding common shares of
Tata Teleservices Maharashtra.
100 million3G Americas reports that 3G
UMTS/HSPA mobile broadband
t e c h n o l o g y c o n t i n u e s i t s
momentum throughout the world,
adding more than 100 million
subscriptions in the twelve months
ending in the third quarter 2008,
achieving a significant milestone in
subscriber additions.
At the end of 3Q2008, global
GSM/HSPA wireless subscriptions
were nearly 3.4 billion adding 688
million new subscriptions for the
GSM family of technologies in one
year and capturing an 88.5% share
of market, according to industry
research firm, Informa Telecoms &
Media.
12%After ramping up in 2Q2008 in
large part due to Beijing Olympics
preparations, the worldwide radio
access network (RAN) equipment
market slid 6% to USD9.6 billion in
3Q2008 on sharp declines in the
CDMA segment, reports market
research firm Infonetics Research.
Infonet ics’ report , Mobi le
Network Infrastructure Equipment
and Subscribers, shows that while
most segments of the market
declined, the WCDMA equipment
segment, including base transceiver
stations (Node Bs) and base stations
controllers (radio network controllers
or RNCs) increased 12% in 3Q2008,
and is up 19% year-over-year.
67The UMTS900 Global Status
Informat ion Paper publ i shed
currently by GSA, the Global mobile
Suppliers Association, confirms 67
UMTS900 devices are launched in
the market by 14 suppliers. This
compares with 9 UMTS900 devices
identified in a similar survey by
GSA in June 2008 and confirms an
increase over seven-fold. UMTS900
devices support HSPA data speeds
comparable with 2100MHz devices.
The research by GSA confirms that
the 900/2100MHz combination for
WCDMA-HSPA is becoming much
more commonplace.
20%The average global cost of
residential high-speed Internet
services has decreased 20% 2008
alone, according to new analysis by
Point Topic, a British research firm.
The biggest price drop in 2008
has been for DSL services, which
dropped from an average monthly
cost of USD67 in the first quarter to
USD53 in the third.
APAC leading world in CDMA subscribers, revenue
APAC remains the strongest
CDMA region in terms of subscribers,
service creation and revenue, with
the region's operators seeing some
of the highest wireless data revenues
in the industry.
The region accounts for 53% of
the global CDMA market, according
to the CDMA Development Group
(CDG), with the market reaching
475 million subscribers at the end of
3Q2008. The region's CDMA2000
subscriber-base has also grown by
47.2 million over 2007.
Emerging markets have fuelled
much of this growth, with Indonesia
a lone add ing 5 mi l l ion new
customers in the past 6 months. The
region's CDMA operators also realise
some of the highest ARPU figures
in the world, the CDG says. For
example, Japanese operator KDDI's
wireless data ARPU continually
exceeds USD20.
Vodafone Australia offers pre-paid top-ups via PayPalVodafone Australia has launched
an innovative payment method
for its pre-paid mobile customers,
allowing them to recharge via PayPal.
Vodafone Australia has become the
second operator in the world to offer
recharges via PayPal, with Vodafone
Italia launching a similar service in
August.
"Mobiles have come a long way in
a short time," said Russell Hewitt, CEO
of Vodafone Australia. “Australians are
highly mobile and they often need to
recharge on the move, so we've made
that possible today.”
The service allows users to
recharge directly via their phones once
their PayPal accounts are linked to
their mobile accounts. Customers will
then be sent a recharge PIN via SMS
or email, which can be redeemed with
a free call.
Etisalat, France Telecom establish cooperation agreement
Following a MOU signed on 2 July
2008, Etisalat and France Telecom
recently signed a cooperation
agreement covering Digital Home
services, content, international
networks and enterprise solutions.
Etisalat will acquire a 16.6%
stake of SoftAtHome, a joint venture
launched by Thomson, Sagem and
France Telecom to develop software
solutions for Triple-play services in
the Digital Home. Etisalat will adopt
SoftAtHome solutions for its future
broadband deployments. Both groups
will collaborate on the roll out of
Multi-play solutions from the technical
and marketing points of view.
Etisalat and France Telecom
pave the way for a cooperation on
acquiring specific content for their
respective footprints such as in pay-
TV films, sports or events. Etisalat also
confirms its interest in distributing
the multiplayer game Warhammer
Online. Studio 37, France Telecom's
subsidiary dedicated to investing in
films, and Etisalat will join forces in
co-production of movies.
GLOBAL DIGEST
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 453
Huawei News
StarHub selects Huawei for the world’s first commercial femtocell network
Dec 2008, Shenzhen, China,
Huawei has helped StarHub, a leading
telecom operator in Singapore,
deploy the world's first commercial
3G femtocell network. As the leading
femtocell end-to-end solution
provider, Huawei has now deployed
a total of 21 pre-commercial and trial
femtocell networks across the world,
more than any other company in the
industry.
A 3G femtocell is a portable
wireless access device that connects
3G mobile handsets directly to a
standard broadband DSL or cable
service to provide mobile voice and
data coverage in the home and
office environment. Femtocells are
particularly useful for areas where
broadband access would otherwise
be limited or unavailable.
Huawei's femtocell solution
enables end-users to enjoy high-
speed wireless data services indoors
such as streaming video, IPTV, video
conferencing and mobile broadband.
Femtocells are also important for
operators to implement a full-service
operation strategy in this new era of
network convergence.
With the flourishing development
of 3G services, femtocells are
gaining momentum driven by top-
tier telecom operators including
Vodafone, Telefónica, TI, T-Mobile,
AT&T and Verizon.
Huawei unveils end-to-end HSPA+ mobile solutionDec 2008, Shenzhen, China,
Huawei announced the successful
completion of the world's first live
demonstration of a commercially
ready HSPA+ network and device.
Conducted in Hong Kong
with leading telecoms operator
PCCW, the live demonstration of
Huawei's HSPA+ mobile broadband
terminal, the E182E (based on
4th generation BTS), showed
that data-intensive applications
sharing can be transmitted with
HSPA+ data speeds. PCCW also
showcased its network capability
and readiness for support ing
HSPA+ mobile broadband services
achieving maximum speeds over
fiber backhaul. Huawei's E182E 3G
HSPA+ mobile broadband solution
will be ready for full commercial use
in the early part of 2009.
"It is clear from today's live
demonstrat ion that Huawei's
E182E HSPA+ solution, coupled
with PCCW's sophisticated digital
network, will enable PCCW to
de l iver a wor ld-c lass mobi le
broadband experience to our
customers through increased
network capacity and the highest
data speeds," said PCCW Wireless
Business Managing Director Richard
Midgett.
"The successful testing of our
HSPA+ technology is another
milestone in making this important
end-to-end solution available to
mobile network operators across
the globe, providing them with
unrivalled universal mobile broadband
connectivity," said Mr. Charles Huang,
President of Global Marketing,
Strategy & Marketing Division, Huawei
Technologies. "Huawei's HSPA+
solution carries an unparalleled speed
of up to 21Mbps which is the fastest
in the world to date."
Huawei's HSPA+ serv ice is
expected to be adopted by several
key operators because it is a cost-
effective migration path from
HSDPA/HSUPA, allowing end users
to enjoy the higher speeds and
reliability that HSPA+ delivers. The
technology is backward compatible
with a l l pr ior generat ions of
WCDMA and evolves exist ing
networks without the need for new
spectrum.
This time is the first time HSPA+
has been tested with Huawei's own
HSPA+ mobile broadband terminal.
The E182E enables consumers to
enjoy blistering Internet speeds
while network operators will be
able to provide improved service
offerings more efficiently. Bell Canada developes national wireless network
14 Oct 2008, Toronto, Canada,
Huawei had been selected by
Bell Canada to provide network
infrastructure for its national overlay
of HSPA network to its national
EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized)
wireless network. The HSPA overlay
will also offer Bell an efficient
upgrade path forward to LTE.
The multi-year, multi-million
dollar agreement will see Huawei
providing Bell with radio access
network technology for its new next
generation wireless network.
Stephen Howe, Bell Senior Vice
President of Wireless Network and
Chief Technology Officer said, "Bell is
committed to delivering Canadians
the broadest choice in high-speed
wireless service now with national 3G
service and in future as we prepare
to move to LTE. We are proud to
work with Huawei Technologies to
make both these objectives a reality."
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45 4
Huawei ships over 20 million mobile broadband units to dateNov 2008, Macau, China, Huawei
has shipped over 20 million mobile
broadband units to over 115 countries
covering Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin
America, North America, Middle East
and Africa. Having worked closely
with more than 230 international
opera tor s , Huawe i ' s mob i le
broadband is the preferred choice for
operators around the world.
The growth in mobile broadband
products including data card,
dongles and embedded modems
has far exceeded the forecast of the
industry in 2006 and 2007 for two
consecutive years. Over the next
three years, industry analysts expect
the mobile broadband market to
grow at an amazing compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46%,
with annual shipments reaching 100
million by 2011.
"Huawei has emerged as the gold
standard in partnering with operators
for mobile broadband devices. Its
proven ability to focus on operators'
needs, to provide differentiated
customization, including award-
winning industrial designs, and to
deliver robust applications suites
has been recognized by operators
global ly," said Edward Chen,
CEO of Huawei Communication
Technologies.
Huawei also revealed a partnership
with GSMA, the global trade body
for the mobile industry. The two
have joined forces to help the mobile
industry realize the huge potential
market for consumer and industrial
goods that can connect to 3G mobile
networks.
Huawei maintains No.1 position in global DSL market8 Dec 2008, Shenzhen, China,
Huawei welcomed the release of a
new report that has ranked Huawei
first in the global DSL industry with
a worldwide market share of more
than 30%. The 3Q2008 market
share report authored by respected
telecoms market research firm
Broadbandtrends found Huawei
delivered more than 6.6 million
DSL lines in 3Q2008 with a market
share of 30.5%, retaining its global
leadership in the DSL industry.
The report also revealed that
Huawei's leadership in the IP DSL
and Multi-Service Access Platform
(MSAP) segmented markets with
28.5% and 34.5% market share
respectively.
H u a w e i ' s c o p p e r a c c e s s
solutions now serve more than
180 million users worldwide and
have been deployed in more than
90 countries on behalf of the
industry's top operators including,
British Telecom, SingTel, Etisalat,
Telecom Italia, Telmex, Telefonica,
China Unicom and China Telecom.
"Despite the fierce competition
of the global DSL market, Huawei
consol idated i ts number one
industry position with a very strong
30.5% market share," said Teresa
Mastrangelo, a principal analyst
for broadband infrastructure and
services at Broadband trends.
"This clearly indicates the extent
to which Huawei's network access
services have been widely adopted
and trusted by operators across
the globe."
Huawei also remains a leading
provider in the FTTx market and
has already engaged in more than
100 FTTx projects worldwide for
more than 40 telecom operators.
Having constructed the world's
largest commercial GPON FTTH
and FTTB networks as well as the
first FTTx mobile bearer network,
Huawei i s he lp ing operators
transform their existing networks
in to next -generat ion d ig i ta l
broadband access platforms.
Huawei records industry first, ships 1 billionth mobile softswitch license15 Dec 2008, Shenzhen, China,
Huawei has now shipped over
one billion licenses for its All-
IP based mobile softswitch. This
significant milestone was reached
only f ive years after Huawei
shipped the industry's first mobile
softswitch and it is the first time
any manufacturer has reached
this level. Huawei softswitches are
speeding the transformation of
mobile networks to All-IP in more
than 100 countries.
Huawei launched its IP-based
mobile softswitch solution in 2003
and, in the same year, installed the
world's first 3G mobile softswitch
with separate architecture in the
United Arab Emirates. In 2004,
the company created the world's
la rgest IP mobi le sof tswi tch
network in China. And in 2008,
Huawei launched its service quality
management solution to simplify IP
core network maintenance. Huawei
continues to lead in the technology
development of IP mobile core
networks to help operators build
more open and flexible mobile core
network architectures in a cost-
effective way.
Stéphane Téral, Principal Analyst
for Infonet ics Research said:
"Over the last few years, mobile
telecom networks have been
revolutionized by changing from
TDM-based centralized control
to IP-based distributed control.
Huawei's flawless execution in
delivering a reliable and scalable
softswitch since the beginning
of the migration has helped to
accelerate that trend, as shown
by their being the first vendor to
achieve this milestone."
Huawei's focus on customer
needs has resulted in continued
inc reases i n the number o f
customers and the capabilities
have expanded dramat ica l ly,
culminating in today's milestone.
N o t a b l e c u s t o m e r s i n c l u d e
Vodafone, Orange, KPN, Telenor,
Rel iance Telecom, MTN, and
Etisalat.
Mr. Cai Liqun, president of
Huawei core network product
l ine , sa id , "Our expert i se in
IP technologies is focused on
providing significant benefits for
our customers as their networks
undergo IP transformation. We
remain committed to customer-
centric technology innovation
and creating maximum value for
operators so that they can provide
the best services for end-users."
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
VOICEFROM OPERATORS
Big country, big choice
uawei COMMUNICATE reporter Julia Yao recently met with Mr. Stephen Howe, Sen io r Vice Pre s ident o f
Wireless Network and Chief Technology Officer at Bell Mobility, to find out more.
HSPA brings more choices
Bell offers the largest 3G network in Canada now with its existing Evolution Data Optimized (EVDO) network. In October, Bell announced that it will build out its network infrastructure with a national overlay of HSPA technology to complement its EVDO network. What are the business and technological considerations behind this decision?
“We want to offer maximum 3G choice to our customers, while at the same time confirming our move forward to 4G LTE,” Mr. Howe explains.
Bell intends to maintain both national EVDO and HSPA networks and call them both 3G. The company currently has about seven million customers on its EVDO networks. Mr. Howe describes how customers would benefit from wider
choice:“We will give our customers a choice of
whether they want handsets and rate plans on EVDO or HSPA. With mobile number portability, they can still keep their phone number. For example, if they want to be an international traveler within the GSM ecosystem, they will go to HSPA. If they want the current coverage advantages of EVDO in North America, they will opt for that technology. We will soon be able to allow customers to decide whether they prefer HSPA or EVDO from Bell.”
The reason Bell selected HSPA technology is quite straightforward, he said: “To tap the ecosystem benefits of the technology for global roaming and global economies of scale, and prepare for the evolution to LTE.” Mr. Howe is certain about Bell’s commitment to LTE, but a bit cautious on the timing. “The ultimate destination for us is LTE and the HSPA network is an interim step towards LTE. But we will not be at the forefront of LTE as we will watch the ecosystem unfold.”
The multi-year, multi-million dollar network project will see Huawei providing Bell with radio access network technology for its new next-generation wireless network. Mr. Howe is very confident
By Julia Yao
about the cooperation with Huawei: “We believe we will make history with Huawei. We are going to build the best network for Canadians. Certainly Huawei showed that kind of commitment. They are very cost-effective and their products are second to none. I’m very pleased with their roadmap.”
Coverage challenges in a vast land
The mobile penetration rate in Canada is just 65%, which is relatively low compared with many developed countries. Mr. Howe attributes the difference to three key factors: one, the licensing of digital wireless spectrum later in Canada than in many other countries, including the United States; two, Canada’s immense geography; and three , its robust and unlimited-usage wireline networks.
“Compared with most European countries where a large population is condensed in such a small area, the Canadian market is very spread out–only 33 million people in a country larger even than China. It’s very difficult to get everyone covered. Even in those rural
5
H
As the country’s largest communications company, Bell Canada is committed to giving Canadians the best possible choice in high-speed wireless service with its national 3G services and, in the future, with LTE. With wireless division Bell Mobility having commenced a multi-year HSPA network rollout in October, Bell is sure to make its objectives a reality.
VOICEFROM OPERATORS
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
—Mr. Stephen Howe, SVP of Wireless Network and CTO at Bell Mobility
We want to offer maximum 3G choice to our customers, while at the same time confirming our move forward to 4G LTE.
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DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
areas that have been covered, the coverage challenges make the cost per subscriber relatively high.”
Despite the coverage challenges, Bell Canada’s network now serves 98% of the population. “As we roll out our HSPA network, we are using our current cell sites. We just put the HSPA equipment beside the EVDO equipment, roughly one for one. So our HSPA network will also very quickly cover 98% of the population.”
In addition to network coverage challenges, the solid performance of Canadian wireline services like Bell’s is also part of the reason for a relatively low mobile penetration rate, Mr. Howe says. “Unlike Europe where home phone services are very expensive, or some developing countries where there has been virtually no wireline infrastructure, we have wireline services with almost 130 years of history. Alexander Graham Bell invented the landline phone and virtually everyone in Canada has one. As the rates are affordable and the service robust, people have felt less need to go wireless. That said, there is certainly a growing trend to landline replacement with wireless, especially among younger Canadians, which we expect to accelerate.”
Mr. Howe says the mobile penetration growth rate in Canada is comparable to that in the U.S., except that Canada is about 18 months behind its neighbour to the south. “That’s largely because the U.S. started a year and a half ahead of us in the digital wireless business, but we have at least kept pace with their growth since our own launch.”
Win-win through sharing
To tackle coverage challenges and bring mobile services to more Canadians faster, Bell and its rival, Telus, initiated a network sharing agreement in 2001. The new HSPA network, to be jointly built by the two competitors, is an extension of the network sharing agreement. What is the scope of the agreement, and what kind of network engineering challenges will it bring?
Mr. Howe acknowledges that Telus and Bell are fierce rivals. “We are actually very tough competitors in stores, marketing, pricing, handset selection etc.” The network agreement, as Mr. Howe sees it, is win-win from a capital investment perspective as well as delivering lower OPEX. Networks can be built faster and provide better choice in services to customers and end users. “Our rural customers would be waiting for years for each of us to build our networks separately. But sharing the cost makes a lot of difference in time to completion, and we can compete for customers much more quickly in the marketplace. ”
The network sharing agreement is not just for connectivity – it also covers SMS, MMS and other fast-growth data services. “Our features and services are transferable and vice-versa. A customer on our network or their network won’t be able to tell the difference. So Telus customers who are on the Bell portion of network will still believe they are on the Telus network. The approach allows each carrier to offer a national network with the full range of data service at greatly reduced cost and time to market.”
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To make the network sharing agreement work, certain engineering challenges need to be solved. “Right from the technology to the planning and implementation, we are pretty closely locked up. There is intense coordination at the network implementation level between Telus and us.”
Mr. Howe also highlights some unique features and services available on the Huawei platform, called MOCN (multiple operator core network), that allow the two companies to most effectively cooperate in the context of their status as separate and competing companies. “It essentially allows us to share the radio network and have two separate core networks. On the core network, we will implement our unique features and services, and the radio network is where we do the sharing.”
Converged service experience
Being the wireless unit of BCE, Canada’s largest communication provider, how does Bell Mobility leverage the group’s full-service portfolio and provide converged service experiences to customers?
On the infrastructure side, Bell Mobility shares the backhaul services from cell sites to switches, using Bell’s own combination fibre and microwave wireline network. This gives the company a cost advantage over many carriers.
Bell Canada is the country’s largest wireline company, largest provider of business communications services, largest direct-to-home digital television provider, largest Internet provider and largest EVDO wireless provider. “As a result, our customers can really benefit from our converged experiences. For example, customers can watch the same TV content on our Bell TV service, through our Bell Internet service, or watch mobile TV on their wireless handsets.
“We bring that all together, and offer a good variety of services to our customers. Mobility services are a core part of our consumer service bundles and of course at the Enterprise and Small Business Level, it is a straightforward proposition to make wireless part of our converged communications service offering. We look forward to adding national HSPA service to the list of services we offer them very soon.”
Editor: Gao Xianrui [email protected]
We believe we will make history with Huawei. We are going to build the best network for Canadians. Certainly Huawei showed that kind of commitment.
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
Comium tapping into the African market
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VOICEFROM OPERATORS
By Julia Yao
Comium Mobile is the mobile division of the Lebanon-based multi-national telecommunication provider Comium Group. Currently with an operation in four African countries and serving a subscriber base of 1.7 million subscribers, Comium is set to explore greater growth potential and entrench its success in Africa. Our reporter met with Comium Mobile Group CEO, Mr. Jurgen Peetz, who shares their operation success and experiences in African market.
OMMUNICATE: Can you first briefly introduce Comium’s operations in Africa?
Mr. Peetz: Comium Mobile operates in four African countries, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and The Gambia. We launched our first operation 4 years ago in Liberia, followed by Sierra Leone in 2005, where we are positioned as the leader in that market. In May 2007 we launched commercially our operation in Cote d’Ivoire. From the size of the market, Cote d’Ivoire is our flag ship operation with a population of more than 18 million inhabitants. In almost a year we reached 17% of market share with more than 1 million subscribers. Being no.1 in Serra Leone with 35% market share and no.2 in The Gambia with about 25% market share we underline our success as a major player in the African market. In Liberia we got some learning lessons. This will lead us to a total new set up of our team. Success in this market will emphasize our understanding of the African market very soon. Our strategy is
based on an aggressive growth plan: grow in the markets we operate in and acquire soon new opportunities in the African continent. In the last 6 months we focused very much on network quality to build the base for our future growth.
COMMUNICATE: Currently, Comium’s footprint is mainly in the West Africa. What is your ambition for future expansion?
Mr. Peetz: Africa is the land of opportunities. As part of our growth strategy, we are looking for new opportunities in West- and Central-Africa. Our focus is still GSM. However, I bring to your attention that Comium data has built a portfolio of 12 WiMAX licenses in Africa and South America.
COMMUNICATE: I also noticed that Comium recently announced that it has secured twelve licenses to provide WiMAX services across several markets i.e. in East and West Africa including Cote d’Ivory, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Burundi. Being a
GSM operator, what are your business considerations and plan for WiMAX?
Mr. Peetz: So far, we are offering GSM based services with our existing networks. We have not yet invested in 3G. In parallel, we have taken the opportunity to acquire WiMAX licenses to use the business opportunities for business customers who have a strong demand on data services. These customers we are addressing with our WiMAX activities. We have taken the opportunity to pick up the WiMAX licenses in an efficient way. We will launch very soon data services in countries where we have no footprint of GSM but taking into consideration the availability of handsets which will be still a basic requirement to be successful. On the other hand, in the two countries where we have already had GSM, it is a matter of segmentation. GSM is focusing on the mass market. We have already launched in several countries our GPRS services. The market here is not yet ready to take up 3G.
COMMUNICATE: You emphasized on several occasions the unique value
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VOICEFROM OPERATORS
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 459
—Comium Mobile Group CEO, Mr. Jurgen Peetz
We are looking for new opportunities in West- and Central-Africa. Our focus is still GSM. In parallel, Comium data has acquired 12 WiMAX licenses in Africa and South America.
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
Comium Mobile is a fully owned subsidiary of the Comium Group Luxemburg. Comium is licensed to carry out GSM 900/1800, International Voice and Broadband Wireless Internet services in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and Cote d’Ivoire. It offers integrated mobile and telecom services comprising of post-paid and prepaid voice communications, value-added services, mobile data services, and secure high speed Internet Access, together with low cost alternative International calling card services. GSM operations are a staple of Comium’s operations, with the company currently providing its mobile services to over a 1.7 million customers in four West African nations, with plans for future expansions on the African continent and beyond.
About Comium Mobile
Comium contributes to the markets it operates in. What are those values?
Mr. Peetz: network quality as main value driving our activities. Our experience in the markets we operate in shows that the competition’s existing networks is not really focused on this.
Our bouquet of services and applications are up international standards and are in some markets competing aggressively. Our Unique Selling Proposition (USP) will be boosted by the launch of new services, and VAS. Our key differentiator is based on the customer intimacy. Comium Mobile’s customers are treated as fans. We take care of our customers as being part of Comium community. We focus on their day to day needs and we keep our promises. Comium is being identified as the local operator.
COMMUNICATE: Africa market is referred to as a Greenfield with dotted thorns. What are the risks you have often encountered and how did you mitigate the risks?
Mr. Peetz: Any operation in emerging markets like the African one is facing risks. The excitement of these markets is that the risks are multidimensional and coming from different areas. To name some of these: the political instability of each country, the unpredictable behavior of the governments, the unsteadiness of the economical landscape etc… Each one is good for any surprise. And the newest development: they learn from each other and even coordinate action across borders.
COMMUNICATE: Green solution is attractive for African market but some say it’s too costly. What do you think it is a viable solution for African market and when would you expect the large-scale take-up?
Mr. Peetz: Absolutely it is. We are on the way to invest in this area. We are already using the new generation BTS. The economics of this equipment show us interesting savings even a swap could make sense. But the international economic crisis we are facing will make any investment into a swap more difficult: the development of the fuel-prices as one trigger of the swap is getting unpredictable. Furthermore, the combination of greener equipment with solar and wind energy makes a lot of sense. We are now in test trials.
COMMUNICATE: Some say managed service will reduce OPEX while others say it may limit operators’ service provision capabilities. What is your view?
Mr. Peetz: The managed service is a great solution even in the African environment. I am a great believer in a model where the operator monitors closely the performance of the network, and the rest of the services can be outsourced in an economical way. Managed service is the tool for any operator to focus on its core competences. For our networks in The Gambia, Sierra Leone or Cote d’Ivoire, it makes a lot of sense to use the strong footprint of Huawei for efficient technical support and keeping the finger on the
monitoring would be essential.
COMMUNICATE: Customers nowadays want more for less. How do you fill the gap between low ARPU growth and increased investment?
Mr. Peetz: With innovation and creative ideas, we can maintain our customer base and even grow. We are effectively working on implementing new services which bring us unique selling prepositions even in the African market. We at Comium do believe in creativity, market understanding and flexibility.
To give you an example, Comium is working with third-parties to cultivate new revenue streams. We think it is vital to partner, because these partners provide access to potential customers. We can even create attractive corporations where our business target fits the partners’. We are working on such strategic alliances such as banks. More of these ideas we see the light very soon in our markets.
COMMUNICATE: What can vendors help you in addition to just providing equipment?
Mr. Peetz: First of all, I consider when we discuss with the key vendor about really new technologies and ideas, we should have the confidence of confidentiality. When an idea is like a bud all partners should communicate openly and transparently about concerns, issues, and needs to make it happen according to the agreed timescale. Any delay will be costly on the way to market.
Editor: Gao Xianrui [email protected]
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COVER STORY
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 4511
: Fresh air and market share
O2: Fresh air and market share
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
Huawei Communicate
By Wang Kening & Ling Yun
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A market challenger in Germany
f the U.K. is a classical concerto and France a romantic serenade, then Germany i s a symphony. With the largest economy and
most population in Europe, a solid and successful track record in both industrial and commercial sectors, it consistently ranks as the top performer in Europe. There is prosperity throughout the country, from BMW automobiles to record setting consumption at the Oktober fest in Munich to the opulence of the Cologne Cathedral. It is a land where the old meets the new with style and a dedication to high quality.
Germany’s mobile communications market matches its status as a power player. In 1998, the government opened up its telecom market and operators became fiercely competitive. At its peak, there were more than 400 fixed and mobile network operators. The resulting cutthroat price war fueled a wave of mergers and acquisitions. Under the law of the telecom jungle, only the strongest survived. Without a doubt, Viag Interkom, O2’s predecessor, had strength and consistently remained one of the top four mobile operators in the German market.
O2 is a renowned European multinational operator. The company was acquired by Telefonica for about USD31.5 billion in 2005, which greatly elevated O2’s brand equity and fueled its rapid growth. O2 is a pacesetter in many market sectors and now serves 43 million subscribers. In the U.K.,
: Fresh air and market shareO2 has overtaken Vodafone to lead the mobile communications market in terms of subscriber base, revenue, and profit. In the Czech Republic, O2’s sales revenue and ARPU outperform competitors. In Germany, their ARPU outranks the other top three operators.
However, O2 Germany was facing the biggest challenge. At the end of 2007, O2 Germany under the umbrella of Telefonica, made a cruc ia l dec i s ion to re shape Germany’s mobile communications market and bolster O2’s market dominance.
How to catch up ?
O2 entered the German market later than the three other main operators. Their predecessor, Viag Interkom, commercially deployed its GSM network in October 1998, s ix year s a f te r the l aunch of Deutsche Telekom’s GSM network. Due to stiff competition from Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, Viag Interkom secured a modest 7% of the market share despite 4 years of development. By 2003, things started to shape up a bit better.
Fol lowing its acquis it ion of Viag Interkom in May of 2002, O2 captured a market share that, for the first time, exceeded 10%, mainly due to its strong brand position in Europe. However, the company’s growth slowed down in following years.
In 2005, O2 became a member of the Telefonica family. Telefonica had expected O2 to contribute significantly to its aggressive marketing plan. The O2 brand had built a substantial competitive edge in
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By Zhao Yuan
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O2: Fresh air and market share
“In addition to the expansion of the network to almost 100%, our goal is the provision of the most state-of-the-art network infrastructure for mobile voice and data communications by 2009.”
O2’s new management team examined its existing network and detected four major problems:
First, due to poor network coverage, subscribers roamed to other operators’ networks, eroding its revenue.
Second, O2 launched hundreds of tariff packages in response to fierce market competition, only to shrink its ARPU.
Third, despite the current stagnation in data service, leading operators accelerated their efforts to launch new services. O2’s outdated network was falling behind demand for data services.
Fourth, built on a complex structure, O 2 ’s n e t w o rk h a d a c c o m m o d a t e d multi-vendor equipment and poorly established IT and network management infrastructures, driving up the network OPEX.
The management team came up with a good solution: Adjust the existing 2G network, migrate services to advanced base stations and expand both the 2G and 3G networks.
Germans have a reputation of being hardworking, precise and efficient in engineering and manufacturing. Buses and trains accurately arrive and depart on time. A country like this is certain to expect perfection as O2 did from mobile networks and network equipment providers.
O2’s criterion for a supplier follows:First, the supplier needs to provide
cutting-edge products and technologies for network performance improvements and data services.
Second, they need to gain market share quickly, and this requires rapid local project delivery.
Third, the new network must have robust manageability and energy efficiency to help reduce the TCO. O2 is planning to cut the number of its mobile operations staff from 4,700 to 4,000. They expect the new network to help downsize the O&M workforce as part of the OPEX reduction.
Fourth, even though they are behind the competition in the 3G era, they want to catch up in the LTE era. O2 prioritizes long-term evolution and expects the new network to be capable of smooth evolution.
Only a few leading suppliers could
its multinational operations, yet suffered from low network coverage. Previously, its GSM network covered only 80% of Germany. The company also trailed its competitors in UMTS network coverage.
Subscribers outside of its network coverage area had to roam to the T-Mobile network. This alone was gobbling up 30% of its revenues each year. Even worse, network performance was poorer than the other top operators in Germany. O2’s growth was slowing down given the increa s ing compet i t ion in th i s well-developed market with a mobile penetration rate as high as 117%.
During the first two quarters of 2007, O2 experienced an unexpected drop in operating revenues. The last thing a fast-growing company expected to see, and a prime concern for Telefonica.
Telefonica decided to invest 3.5 billion Euros for network capacity expansion and performance upgrades as part of its initiative to construct a nationwide 2G/3G network in three years and grab more dwindling market share.
“In addition to the expansion of the network to almost 100%, our goal is the provision of the most state-of-the-art network infrastructure for mobile voice and data communications by 2009,” said Ms. Andrea Folgueiras, CTO of O2.
In December 2007, O2 se l ec ted Huawei as a supplier to deploy its mobile network. The project included migration and expans ion of GSM and UMTS networks involving more than 8,700 base stations. The project has provided network coverage in the richest and most developed industrial and commercial areas across the south of Germany, including places like Bavaria, Baden Wurttemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia. These regions are home to a wealth of well-known cities and tourist sites, including Munich, Germany’s second largest city and the host of the 20th Olympic Games, historical cities like Stuttgart and Nuremberg, plus well-known tourist spots and resorts like Lake Königssee, the Black Forest, and Mt. Zugspitze.
Choosing the partner
meet O2’s rigid requirements. Huawei comfortably retained the first place during technical bid evaluation thanks to its 4th generation BTSs that are leading the 2G/3G network convergence industry. After a visit to the GSM network project Huawei delivered to Vivo, Telefonica’s Brazilian subsidiary, O2’s management team was impressed by Huawei’s rapid delivery capability. To reaffirm its leading position during the bid, Huawei drew up an exhaustive local delivery plan and won the bid.
Ms. Andrea Folgueiras, O2’s CTO, commented on awarding the contract to Huawei, “Huawei is the ideal partner to meet our requirements.” What’s more, Huawei is also a provider of cutting-edge equipment. More importantly for O2, Huawei’s solution incorporates UMTS and GSM technologies into one base station, allowing the GSM network to readily evolve to the UMTS network.
Building a live network
O 2 ’ s n a m e e m b o d i e s t h e company’s vision of providing mobile communications service that no one can live without, just like oxygen. Building a live, breathing network adds vitality and extends the service life of network equipment.
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Huawei Communicate
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Here is how Huawei managed to deploy the mobile network.
First, Huawei explored O2’s specific requirements . Their GSM network and UMTS network were previously independent of each other, and a number of large and energy-consuming base stations were deployed on the networks, making operation and maintenance quite difficult. Even worse, equipment rooms were packed with equipment, complicating network capacity expansion. Due to the high costs of electricity, labor and rent in Europe, O2’s CAPEX was snowballing and OPEX was on the rise, up 35% in 2007 alone. O2 could not wait to replace its base stations with smaller, energy efficient, easily manageable substitutes.
Huawei used its fourth generation 2G/3G base station 3900 series and reused all the previous sites. The radio access networks (RANs) for the deployment of this base station series can be converged into a single RAN, supporting a variety of radio access networks, such as GSM, UMTS, and LTE networks.
Previously, O2 employed two GSM and one UMTS base stations at one site. After migration with Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs, one base station alone can provide both GSM and UMTS network coverage, significantly reducing the equipment footprint and facilitating operation and maintenance. This has helped O2 achieve
its goal of reducing labor costs. Huawei was the first vendor to launch dual-model base stations and successfully deployed converged GSM and UMTS networks, which enable O2 to deploy a single RAN that combined 2G and 3G capabilities.
Based on a unified platform and RF modules, Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs provide the capability of integrating multi-mode RF modules into a single base station. This allows the RF modules to switch between GSM and UMTS, or between UMTS and LTE, and supports smooth evolution to future-oriented technologies such as LTE and HSPA+. O2’s network is ready and enabled to adapt to future technologies and retain a competitive edge over the long haul, while extending the service life of network equipment.
Based on in-depth research of the local geographical environment, Huawei provided a tailored solution that let O2 achieve enhanced network coverage simply and by deploying the same number of base stations.
When the project is completed, O2 will possess a state-of-the-art, eco-friendly network featuring high performance and robust coverage. The well-established network will have 100% GSM network and 60% UMTS coverage, to provide end users with more data services and enhanced experiences.
Blue O2 is green
The rising blue bubbles of O2’s logo are ubiquitous throughout Germany, but O2 has remained the talk of the German telecom industry for a long time due to its commitment to energy conservation and environmentally friendly operational practices.
Germany has been committed to protecting the climate and environment for sustainable development. Environmental protection has become not only a legal but also a social responsibility for corporate citizens.
Due to the large quantity of base stations operating around the clock, the mobile communications industry has become a huge energy consumer. Statistics show that one traditional 1.5 KW GSM BTS will emit over 12 tons of carbon dioxide each year, equivalent to the emissions from an average car that travels 80,000km.
O2 remains dedicated to environmental protection and energy conservation in addition to continuously enhancing subscribers’ communication experiences. T h e y a r e a n e xe m p l a r y c o r p o r a t e citizen with their commitment to the env i ronment and the u se o f g reen technology.
O2’s new network relies on Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs to reduce energy consumption in the following four areas:
First, by utilizing a new technology to enhance power amplification efficiency, new base stations have increased efficiency from below 40% to above 45%.
Second, the network has reached beyond energy-efficient base stations to incorporate auxiliary facilities as part of the whole system, saving energy in both green base stations and green sites. Network energy efficiency overall is now as high as 60%.
Third, 4th generation BTSs using multi-carrier technology have realized wider coverage without adding base stations, reducing TCO and lessening environmental impact.
Fourth, Germany prioritizes renewable energy resources and leads the world in utilizing new energy sources, producing
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requested a survey plan two weeks in advance and requested that Huawei provide details on intended surveyors, including their passport numbers and license plate numbers. Huawei employees could not enter BMW’s campus with camera phones, and should wear special protective clothes and shoes. As the cooperation deepened, BMW realized that all members of Huawei’s O2 project team had strictly observed BMW’s rules and regulations. They were beginning to trust Huawei and provided great support for Huawei’s team later, laying a sound foundation for successful migration on the first attempt.
The O2 pro j ec t was the wor ld ’s first mass deployment of Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs. In order to ensure successful deployment of new products on an existing network, Huawei collected information outside BMW’s campus ahead of migration and arranged for HQ personnel to carry out various mirroring verification tests. There were no tests on the campus before migration and precautions were taken against all the projected potential risks.
To ensure that products, auxiliary equipment and documentation were free of errors, the Huawei project team tested all the products before they were taken out of the warehouse. The team even checked and verified data configurations,
30% o f the w ind power gene ra t ed worldwide. In keeping with Germany’s green initiative, Huawei is currently exploring ways of helping O2 power their base stations using local clean energy sources to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. German media once described the O2 brand as “artistic”. Now, green can be definitely added to that moniker.
Delighting BMW
In terms of market share, O2 is still trailing the other top German operators, but has the highest ARPU. Competition is fierce and the leading operators have launched hundreds of tariff packages. O2’s secret to high ARPU is largely attributed to its extensive base of group users.
Group users can generate s teady revenues and contribute a high ARPU to operators, but they expect far more from the network than individual subscribers. Despite their status as the most sought-after source of customers, group users may jump to another network if their requirements are not satisfied. A collective defection will definitely mean far heavier losses to the operator compared to losing individual subscribers.
Another O2 secret is their ability to manage, maintain, and satisfy group users with continuously enhanced network performance.
BMW is O2’s most important group user. O2 provides communication network coverage for all of BMW’s German plants. Located in the south, Dingolfing is one of BMW’s largest plants. There are no fixed-line telephones, only 60,000 mobile terminals across the plant.
O2’s older, obsolete network was not providing the network performance and quality that BMW needed and they were ready to move to another telecom service provider. At this critical moment, O2 decided to migrate its network using Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs.
Network migration for BMW was no easy job. BMW relied totally on the mobile network to carry out all its business activities. Network migration could not interference with its day-to-day operations and services and BMW had very busy
schedule. Employees worked three shifts around the clock and the network had to be used 24/7. The time left for cutover was quite limited, and a wide variety of services run on the network, complicating the cutover effort. The rigid workflow unique to the old-line manufacturer necessitated a well-planned and properly organized migration. It had to be perfect. If the migration failed even on the first try, O2 would lose this heavyweight client.
“ B M W i s O 2 ’s m o s t i m p o r t a n t customer. BMW’s communication services are all running over mobile terminals. Even the slightest mistake would have serious consequences.” Chen Shufeng, Huawei’s project director said, “Though quite demanding, we fully understood that we had to make it the first time to set the stage for the future.”
Huawei and O2 soon formed a joint team to draft a project plan and technical proposal eight weeks in advance. Every activity was accurate to within one hour. Deviation of the weekly plan was limited to a range of ±1%, which represents a highest industry standard for engineering delivery.
BMW also highly regards information security in order to protect its innovative accomplishments, such as up-to-date car models.
For migration, Huawei had to conduct a sur vey o f BMW ’s campus . BMW
O2: Fresh air and market share
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Huawei Communicate
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The new high-quality network was highly regarded by BMW, which has enhanced BMW’s experiences with its rich set of services. The considerably improved network performance has also better equipped O2 to meet the strong competition and deepen its ties with BMW.
nameplates, and labels time repeatedly to ensure that they were all up to O2’s standard before bringing them on site.
The Huawei team pored over the smallest details and were well prepared for any possible glitches. For example, BMW’s campus was equipped with numerous repeaters to provide indoor coverage. Incorrect power configuration would cause the repeaters to break down, and since the original repeaters were outdated, a lot of data became inaccurate. To ensure correct data configuration, the Huawei O2 team tested the data time and time again. Thanks to all the hard work, the data remained almost the same before and after the migration, and services were operating steadily during the migration.
The project plan was an overwhelming success. The difference between actual daily process and the plan was within 2%. The migration empowered the new network to outperform the previous one in terms of call drop rate, handover and data service. The new high-quality network was highly regarded by BMW. On the migration site, the O2 project leader said, “You have successfully completed the migration. We are honored to witness this historic moment together with Huawei!”
The new network has enhanced BMW’s experiences with its rich set of services. The considerably improved network performance has also better equipped
O2 to meet the strong competition and deepen its ties with BMW.
O2 spreads its wings
Successful configuration of BMW’s network is a testament to the outstanding level of professionalism and cooperation between the Huawei and O2 project teams. As delivery sped up in 2008, O2’s new network gradually went into operation. With Huawei’s superior product performance and high-quality delivery, O2 spreads its wings to secure a leading position in Germany’s telecom market through its new network.
During the second quarter of 2008, O2 subs tant ia l ly improved market performance. The company signed up 568,000 new subscribers, increasing its subscriber base to 14 million. During the quarter, O2 posted a 50% increase of sales revenue compared with that of 2007.
Mr. Jaime Smith Basterra, O2’s CEO, said, “Be it prices, tariffs or services, we a lway s f o cu s on the cu s tomer. Innovative offers like Genion or LOOP, clearly defined tariff structures as well as our development into an integrated communications provider follow this tradition. It is not for nothing that most recent surveys confirm that our customers are the most satisfied customers, and every
second customer recommends us. But, we want to do even more.”
In addition to extended coverage, the new network has helped O2 commercially deploy HSDPA, HSUPA and EDGE services in more cities, giving subscribers faster and easier access to mobile data services.
O2 recent ly launched the highly successful Fonic service that provides a wider array of mobile Internet services including surfing, email, streaming video and music downloads for as low as 2.5 Euros a day. Fonic is for sale at more than 5,000 sales outlets nationwide and the subscriber base is expanding rapidly.
O2 has also launched a hardware device called Surf Stick for more efficient Internet browsing. It combines network capabilities with mobile terminals and can provide an Internet access speed as high as 3.6Mbps. Subscribers can watch IPTV on their mobiles and never miss an important show, and send data on the fly.
O2 is planning to commercia l ize HSUPA services and increase the HSDPA service rate at the end of 2008. Their aim is to serve more than 50% of Germany’s population as soon as possible.
The success of the O2 project and the excellent performance of Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs lead us next to the wealthiest country in Eastern Europe.
O2 Czech Republic recently selected Huawei to implement GSM network m i g r a t i o n a n d U M T S n e t w o r k construction. The company has planned to dep loy over 4 ,500 base s ta t ions for the pro jec t . The Czech mobi l e communications market is renowned for high ARPU, high penetration rate, and high technology. As the market leader, O2 Czech Republic boasts the first 3G network in the country. By utilizing Huawei’s 4th generation BTSs to adjust and expand its exit ing network, O2 Czech Republic’s new network is poised for great market performance with high-speed mobile data services, and will be Czech Republic’s first commercial HSUPA network.
Like a breath of fresh air, O2 will increasingly contribute to the energy of Telefonica’s business expansion worldwide.
Editor: Pan Tao [email protected]
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45
Powering remote sites
he number of people using mob i l e phone s , a round 3 bi l l ion today, i s projected exceed 5 billion by 2015. More
than 90 percent of these new subscribers are expected to come from emerging markets, with between 60 percent and 80 percent of them located in rural areas. The vast majority of these areas, however, have no access to electric grids. The market is huge: Extending service to the next 2 billion subscribers will require between 1.5 million and 2 million new stations, more than half of them located in areas without access to electric grids.
From Unstrung Insider
Mobile networks go green
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As mobile operators seek to extend their networks beyond the reach of power grids, they need to find alternatives to diesel, widely used today to power generators in remote areas. Diesel-powered generators require regular and costly refueling and a high level of maintenance, and are susceptible to theft. Solving the power issue is therefore crucial to maintaining the growth of the mobile phone industry.
Alternative energies
A number of cost-effective alternative energies are now available from major suppliers of radio-site equipment. Solar- and wind-power systems in particular
have progressed in recent years. In fact, they are now at the point where they can be considered as a supplement, but even as primary energy source. Their cost, although still relatively high, are falling. Lower prices, together with vendor expertise in optimizing cell-site power requirements, will make not only solar, but also wind and other alternative energies increasingly cost-effective compared with conventional power sources.
Solar energy
Of all the energy alternatives being tested and deployed, solar technology is most mature. Solar cells consist of layers of semiconductor materials with different
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electronic properties that convert light directly into electricity. During a typical sunny day, a 1m2 array of solar cells exposed to the sun at noon will receive approximately 1 kilowatt (KW) of power. For instance, BP Solar’s multicrystalline cells convert roughly 15 percent of this light into electricity; in other words, 1m2 of cells will generate 150 watts in full sunshine. The solar photovoltaic process is completely solid-state and self-contained; there are no moving parts, and no materials are consumed or emitted.
Concerns about climate warming and the need to find alternatives to fossil fuels have helped attract significant global investment to developing advanced solar-panel technology for residential, commercial, and industrial use. This capital has resulted in the production of a wide selection of solar panel systems and a competitive market that is squeezing prices.
Solar power is already used to power radio base stations in remote areas of a number of developing and developed countries, including Senegal and the U.S. In many deployments, however, the use of solar power is combined with diesel generators as a power backup.
Improvements in solar technology have resulted in a significant drop in the number of solar cells required to power a base station. Only about one fourth as many cells are now needed. A wide range of photovoltaic solar panels made of crystalline silicon nitride are already on the market, with varying power output, peak current, and efficiency levels. Many new offerings include timer systems linked to motorized swivels that allow the cells to follow the sun’s path and thus increase output, particularly at the start and end of a day.
Wind energy
Like solar power, wind power can generate essentially free, clean, and reliable energy. Wind is particularly abundant in many mountainous and coastal countries, and the cost of wind turbines is dropping on the back of rising global demand. Advanced wind-powered systems are now widely available, including smaller systems
that can be mounted on existing radio masts. New cylindrical wind towers can be used to mount not only turbines, but also antennas and remote heads.
Fuel cells
Fuel cells have the potential to become a viable alternative energy source. The technology has advanced in recent years, and volume production will help bring prices down. Fuel cells are clean, compact, and climate-resistant, as well as efficient and reliable. They also have the advantage of being load-following, meaning that sizing isn’t an issue. Moreover, they can be deployed as either a primary energy source or as a backup alternative to acid batteries.
O n t h e d o w n s i d e , r e f u e l i n g requirements are as much of an issue for fuel cells as they are for conventional diesel generators. In addition, fuel-cell technology is still in development. Volume production is necessary for this power source to become viable.
Energy optimization
Given the huge challenges in supplying power to remote areas, it is only reasonable that cellular networks and their individual components should be designed for maximum energy efficiency. A poorly designed network, for instance one with too many radio sites, can easily eliminate any savings achieved through energy-efficient components. A critical first step in planning a network using one or more alternative energies is to find ways to minimize energy consumption.
Efficient design
At the heart of an energy-efficient mobile network is good design. This starts with determining coverage, capacity, and quality needs. Operators must consider, for instance, whether to provide contiguous coverage or just spot coverage; whether congestion can be a problem and how to deal with it; and how important quality voice is. In general, simplifying network architecture and reducing the number of components that require power will enhance energy efficiency.
In early deployments, radio frequency signals were fed to and from the antenna on a mast on the top of building via a feeder cable, often tens of meters long. A significant proportion of the power emitted from the radio transmitters was lost in the feeder cable.
In a typical modern deployment, the baseband unit is physically separated from the PA, one of the most energy-consuming components, which is integrated into the remote radio head. The remote radio head is mounted near the antenna, thereby el iminating much of the power loss incurred by the feeder cable. It connects back to the baseband unit, which is approximately the size of a pizza box and typically located with other components is the main unit nearby. The systems are cooled through natural convection, thus elimination the need for cooling systems. The RF and PA remain the greatest energy consumers, but optimized sites’ overall energy consumption is 50 percent to 70 percent lower, depending on cell-site configuration.
In the pa s t , many componen t s , particularly the PA, needed to be cooled to 25 degree s Ce l s iu s . Technology advancements have raised that limit to more than 50 degrees Celsius, a capability that is helpful in the hot climates of many emerging markets.
Energy-saving features
Standby-supported systems are another way to reduce overal l consumption. Although radio sites must be dimensioned to handle peak traffic, they don’t always need to operate at full capacity. Advanced power-management system can, for example, put on standby one of the four transceivers typically dimensioned for a sector during quieter, non-peak periods. A typical transceiver uses between 40W and 60W; when that is multiplied across a network of hundreds of base stations, the power savings are huge.
Even of the potential for reducing energy consumption is greatest in the radio base stations, saving in the core network are also possible and add to the overall total. A significant improvement in efficiency has come from the move to
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IP-base routing and switching systems. In particular, the transmission of digital compressed voice has lowered transmission capacity requirements by 60 percent to 70 percent. Further, mobile switching center servers can now be housed in one cabinet requiring less than 0.5m2 of floor space, whereas older systems had higher space, cooling, and energy needs.
Technology fit
Operators in both emerging and developed market can choose from a variety of alternative energy options. Determining the most efficient energy source requires evaluating a range of factors, particularly the abundance of sun, wind, and biomass.
The amount of available sunlight is obviously the most important factor in determining the output of a solar electric system in a given location, but temperature is also important. The output of a solar module is proportional to the sun’s intensity. Consequently, the greater the cloud cover, the lower the output. When planning the deployment of solar-powered radio sites, operators and vendors need to study insolation level. Insolation is a term used to express either peak sun-hours per day per square meter or kilowatt-hours per square meter (kWh/m2). A surface’s insolation is greatest when directly facing the sun. The Earth’s poles naturally receive less annual insolation than the equator does.
Solar systems have emerged as the preferred alternative energy solution whenever good solar conditions prevail. However, wind can be a backup to solar in climates with periods of heavy rainfall and poor sunlight. Seasonal monsoons are
in issue in most tropical areas. Wind-only solutions are not popular, however, largely because wind flow can be erratic and thus unreliable. A combination and wind, on the other hand, has its benefits. The higher latitudes in Europe, North and South America, and Asia are challenging for solar power because of their long winter months and frequent cover, but the long summer days and windy winter conditions make a hybrid wind-solar solution attractive. In general, coastal, mountainous, and continental locations will favor wind. There are already numerous solutions on the market to tap the potential of combined solar and wind energy.
As an alternative energy, fuel cells may find greater uptake in developed markets as backup to conventional acid batteries. The technology is still evolving and expensive, as it is not yet fully commercialized. Fuel cells can be twice as expensive as standard acid batteries and generators. Fuel cells produce electricity from oxygen and a fuel, such as hydrogen, without combustion, and are thus more energy-efficient and cleaner. Fuel cells require a fuel source, but they will perform for infinite periods of time if inflows are maintained, they differ from batteries, which are closed energy-storage systems.
Viable practices
T-Mobile is currently testing fuel cells in the northeastern part of the U.S., in addition to solar- and wind-powered sys tem. Like many other operators experimenting alternative energy, the company is keen to learn more about its long-term viability.
Chinese telecom equipment provider Huawei, which has made significant
inroads in international markets in recent years, responded to demand for energy-saving telecom equipment by introducing a new Green Sites Solution earlier in 2008. The radio-site solution uses new power-amplifier technologies such as Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD) and A-Doherty techniques that can increase base stations’ power efficiency by 45 percent. The solution, which uses direct cooling, also eliminates the need for air conditioning and can help operators save up to 5,700 kWh of electricity annually per base station. Power consumption of the new energy-optimized radio site can be low as 500W and, as such, can be powered by alternative energies, including solar, wind, and biofuel. Huawei is reported to have a number of deployments in 12 African countries powered by solar. The company has also been selected by China Mobile to install a solar-powered GSM station from its new line of energy-efficient systems on Mount Everest, at an altitude of 6,500 meters.
Emerging markets offer huge growth potential for the mobile industry. A larger global mobile market means more people connecting with each other, more subscribers generating more revenue for operators, and more base stations for vendors to deploy and maintain. It’s a win-win situation for everyone, but reaching the next 2 billion subscribers won’t be as easy as reaching the last 2 billion was. It will require investment in systems that can convert renewable energies such as solar, wind, and biomass into electricity to power radio sites far removed from electric grids. There is plenty of activity in this area.
Manufacturers have been able to significantly lower the power consumption o f ba s e s t a t ions , wh i ch i s a ma jo r precondition for the cost-effective use of renewable energies. Although electricity fee account for a small percentage of their operating expenses today, energy costs are rising. Given pressure on ARPU, operators are keen to reduce OPEX, regardless of how little. But that means the ROI for alternative energy solutions must be rapid. The industry is on the right track with payback periods of between two to three years.Editor: Michael [email protected]
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Huawei gains soft powerin green telecomBy Wang Tao, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Communications World Weekly
t the end of 2007, China Mobile po s i t i oned i t s e l f a s the f i r s t Chinese operator to launch a new, green equipment purchase
strategy. Promoting energy conservation and environmental protection as key indices for supplier selection, China Mobile publicized its first shortlist comprising 4 vendors of mobile communication main equipment and 11 vendors of auxiliary equipment. This crucial and environmentally forward-thinking move has undoubtedly imposed enormous pressures on the suppliers failing to be shortlisted.
Today’s g loba l t e l e com marke t ha s e m b r a c e d e n e r g y c o n s e r v a t i o n a n d environmental protection as a new arena for competition between telecom equipment vendors. Telecom equipment vendors are not strange to this green concept now, and the nascent purchasing strategies of operators have catalyzed the green agenda’s rise to the forefront of the supply chain.
A green storm is coming
The features of the Chinese telecom market act as a microcosm of the global telecom industry, and the green storm is shaking the industry by its roots. Studies concerning energy conservation standards in the global IT and telecom industries are underway, and numerous operator-led environmental protection regulations have been successively unveiled. The ITU-T, for example, is spearheading a far-reaching ICT
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energy conservation and emission reduction program. Having already launched a research project spanning GPON energy conservation in February 2008, ITU-T’s target for its broader scheme involves consecutive 15% reductions in energy consumption over each of coming 4 years.
At the annual conference covering Network Equipment-Building System on November 6, 2007, the Telecommunications Carriers Group (TCG) worked out specific programs for the formulation and issuance of energy conservation standards. This has been consolidated by European and American developments in April 2008. The Environment Engineering Technical Committee of the European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI EE) organized a conference on emission reduction in Bordeaux and, as a result, numerous vendors—including Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Ericsson—agreed to form their own base station energy conservation standards under the ETSI EE standards’ framework.
In North America, the Telecommunication Energy Efficiency (TEE) of the Network Interface, Power, and Protection Committee of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS NIPP) came into being after the April 2008 conference that centered on energy conservation and environmental protection.
Viewing the latest related progress in the global communications industry, we can see that product-based energy conservation and emission reduction have extended to environmental protection across the entire network lifecycle. Each link of the following closed loop system is to be imbued with a green core: demand - design - research - manufacture - supply chain - deployment - recycling - demand.
Currently, operators and vendors are prioritizing a holistic environmental protection ethos that not only consists of energy conservation and emission reduction in network entities, but also in network operations. British Telecom (BT), for example, has gone as far as to lay down specific regulations covering water usage and fuel consumption by engineering vehicles during network operation and maintenance (O&M).
China Mobile’s green initiative
The communications industry has become an important arena for the whole society to implement energy conservation and environmental protection.
On June 4, 2007, China issued its China’s National Climate Change Program, which indicates that energy conservation and emission reduction has become a national drive. The 11th Five-Year Plan and the Report to The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) project that 2010 will realize an energy consumption reduction per unit of GDP by 20%, compared with the 2005 level. This also marks the incorporation of energy conservation and emission reduction into the government’s performance assessment system for state-owned telecom enterprises. On June 15, 2007, China announced the formation of its dedicated working group charged with formulating environmental protection standards for communications products. At the beginning of 2008, China Mobile declared environmental protection as its inherent duty in its Corporate Social Responsibility Report, which directly gave rise to its Green Program.
At present, thousands of SPC switches and over 600,000 BTSs exist in China. The scale of networks—especially mobile networks—is rapidly expanding, and the demand for energy is growing in parallel. Data indicates that energy consumption per USD1470 of added value forms one seventh of the average national economic performance and one fifteenth of the average industrial performance. In the telecom industry, the GDP per kilowatt-hour is approximately USD5.9, five to six times the national average. This data demonstrates that, compared with other industries, energy consumption in the communications industry is not especially pervasive in terms of direct and added value. However, there is still much room for energy conservation and emission reduction in the telecom field.
BTS energy consumption accounts for about 70% of the total energy used by mobile operators. If China Mobile builds 3 million new carriers over the next 3 years, Huawei predicts that it will curtail power consumption by about 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours. This can be achieved by adopting products with high integration and energy-efficient capacities, reconstructing equipment rooms, and upgrading legacy BTSs with green software. The beneficial effects of these measures equal a 17 million ton decrease in CO2 emissions.
As the telecom operator with the globally largest market value, China Mobile plans to cut 2005 energy consumption levels per unit business volume by 30% by 2010, which will save approximately 8 billion kilowatt-hours.
China Mobile is deploying its green strategy at each network level. In 2007, for example, it
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Editor: Liu Zhonglin [email protected]
formulated the China Mobile Base Station Energy Conservation Technical Protocols. The company is also ratifying technical specifications for core network equipment, which it plans to release in 2008. China Telecom, another major Chinese operator, has established a cross-departmental working group charged with conserving energy and reducing emissions. In this context, China Telecom has incorporated energy efficiency and CAPEX reduction targets into its purchasing strategy. As such, all equipment providers will be tested under this uniform standard.
Huawei gains soft power in green telecom
O b j e c t i v e l y, e n e r g y c o n s e r v a t i o n a n d environmental protection present a big challenge for operating expenditure (OPEX) control. However, the two also form an opportunity for communications enterprises to promote their soft power capabilities. BT, for example, has acquired orders from Scotland’s Edinburgh council based on BT’s green capabilities. This reflects the BT’s sustained investment and commitment to environmental protection.
Stringent requirements have aligned operators with energy conservation and environmental protection goals. The impact on the operational characteristics of communications equipment vendors has been far-reaching, including strict or even harsh testing on soft power capability. Huawei’s tremendous success in Europe in 2007 was largely inspired by its strategic and intensive investment in green technologies. It is generally accepted that European operators lead in the energy conservation and environmental protection area. Among them, the energy conservation platforms seen in Telecom Italia’s access network and Vodafone’s BTSs form two industry benchmarks; in both, Huawei played a pivotal role.
As an important participator in the global communica t ions marke t , Huawe i a t t a che s great importance to energy conservation and environmental protection and, as a result, it emerged as one of the four equipment suppliers selected as a partner for China Mobile’s Green Action Plan. Since 2007, Huawei has carried out progressive talks regarding environmental issues with globally leading operators, including China Mobile, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, etc.. Huawei has closely cooperated with upstream and downstream
enterprises and has remained at the forefront of the green telecom era.
The new generation green mobile network unveiled at the beginning of 2008 describes a good example of current developments. It employs innovative technologies such as advanced power amplification, mult i -carr ier, d i s t r ibuted BTSs, inte l l igent temperature control, and so on. The number of base station controller (BSC) cabinets is reduced from five to one, and BTS capacity is up from 12 carriers to 36. The resulting demand on equipment room area is lessened significantly, yielding engineering installation benefits. In turn, the number of sites and air conditioners is far lower. Energy consumption per BTS is reduced from 1600W to 800W; clean energy sources, such as methane, solar, and wind power, enable operators to realize energy, material, land, and labor conservation; CO2 emission and OPEX, for instance, are down 60% and 30% respectively. Undoubtedly, this network wil l bring about economic gains for operators and fulfill their social responsibility pledges.
Huawei is set to be among the first enterprises to reconstruct its organizational structure and product R&D and manufacturing process to embody a green-centric core. To date, Huawei has implemented whole-process management and whole-series product coverage to further its conservation and protection strategies. Huawei’s energy conservation and emission reduction system encapsulates all its product lines including networks, wireless systems, core networks, service and software, terminals; and all its systems such as R&D, marketing & sales, technical services, and supply chain. Moreover, there are affiliated regular organizations including working groups dedicated in energy conservation and emission reduction, and standards constitution. Each of Huawei’s product line and system has dedicated staff to guarantee the effective and holistic implementation of Huawei’s energy conservation and environmental protection strategy.
An immense push has brought Huawei a series of high-level accomplishments. In June 2008, the world-famous consulting institute In-Stat issued a report entitled Mobile Communications 2008: Green Thinking Beyond TCO Consideration; the report declared Huawei’s evident strengths in many key energy conservation and emission reduction indices, and revealed Huawei to be the leading strategist for green mobile network realization.
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opens the door to green communicationsThe emission of CO2 is widely held to be the dominant cause of global warming and the resulting environmental degradation. Moreover, the communications industry is guilty of leaving one of the largest carbon footprints, a fact which has prompted supply chain stakeholders to seek proactive ways to save energy and reduce the industry’s eco impact. India is credited with leading the drive to promote a low carbon economy and its leading mobile operator, Reliance, is stepping up its efforts to open the door to green communications.
s the world’s second most populous country with approximately 1,13 billion inhabitants, India has enjoyed prosperous economic growth and social development.
Like other developing countries, though, it is facing enormous environmental problems. Its thermal power industry, for instance, is a huge generator of carbon. From 1992 to 2002, the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in India jumped from 280 ppm to 390 ppm due to a CO2 emission increase of 57%. India is becoming warmer, and its temperature rises are rapidly catalyzing soil degradation, water pollution, and flooding. Energy conservation and emission reductions are urgently required to mitigate further environmental destruction, and to guard against catastrophes such as the 2008 Bihar floods, which displaced around 3 million people.
Fig.1 Invisible CO2 emission for one site
Equipment room 65%
Tower 21% Main equipment 11%
Auxiliary equipment 3%
A By Xu Yan
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To fulfill its social responsibility and promote its eco-agenda, Reliance constructed its green radio access network (RAN) using eco-friendly GSM solutions to provide economically and environmentally sustainable services for 55 million mobile subscribers across 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages.
CDMA/GSM co-location for emission reductions
India’s vast territory is experiencing the early phase of urbanizat ion, and this i s of course accompanied by a surge in communications needs. A new mobile network requires a large number of outdoor equipment rooms to ensure wide coverage. However, research reveals that producing materials for equipment room construction such as cement and tiles creates 65% of the total CO2 emissions in one site, as illustrated in Fig. 1. Although no CO2 is generated when these materials are used, the large amount of energy required forms a hidden source of energy consumption.
Cutting these invisible CO2 emissions effectively necessitates a reduction in the number of new sites and equipment rooms, which can be achieved by reusing old equipment rooms. However, traditional
India Reliance opens the door to green communications
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GSM equipment features low integration and occupies large space. At Reliance’s existing CDMA sites, the available space in most equipment rooms was insufficient to house traditional GSM equipment, which in turn requires new sites. However, a project that involves tens of thousands of equipment rooms would have an obvious and extremely detrimental impact on the environment.
Reliance’s eco-commitment led it to se lect Huawei’s new generat ion, highly integrated green GSM BTS after comparison with other vendor’s solutions. Outshining the competition with its remarkably low carbon emissions and construction costs, Huawei’s future-oriented BTS facilitates an S4/4/4 site by using single cabinet that occupies less than half a square meter. The lightness of the BTS negates the need for large mounting facilities and reduces the number of construction personnel, and its compact dimensions reserve space for future expansion that can support 18 GSM/UMTS carriers.
In large cities such as Bombay and Delhi, Reliance has significantly curtailed its construction costs by co-positioning its GSM and CDMA networks to share auxiliary devices such as antennas, feeders, and power supplies. Hardware expansion can be realized through software without expanding the site, which further reduces invisible CO2 emissions. As the basis for Reliance’s green RAN, the Huawei GSM BTS effectively reduces energy consumption and emissions, saves space, and is highly adaptable. These advantages have prompted Reliance to consider sharing its s ite resources with other operators so as to not only minimize its own carbon footprint, but also that of other operators.
Electricity management for energy conservation
India has faced power shortages and over-priced electricity for years, which is exacerbated by rising gas and coal prices. Not only have electricity prices soared, but old equipment reduces the efficiency of generating and using electricity, with the transmission loss rate in New Delhi, for example, reaching 50%. Thus, power savings through efficient BTSs not only reduce CO2 emissions, but also minimize the exorbi tant energy-based OPEX incurred by operators.
The green Huawei GSM BTS selected by Re l iance fea tures an inte l l igent e lectr ic i ty manager, which employs Huawei’s power ampli f icat ion (PA) technology to enhance efficiency by 50% and cut BTS power consumption by over 60%, while giving the same coverage. Its intelligent power control technology can either shut down idle carrier modules or disable part of a given carrier’s time slots to reduce transmission energy when traffic is low. In India, the average traffic volume from 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. is equal to just a tenth of daytime peak hour traffic. By using the above technologies, most BTSs can cut power consumption by a third during non-peak times and still maintain high QoS.
Smooth evolution to a green 3G network
Rel iance’s 2G services have been enormously successful, and have imbued the company with the confidence to develop 3G services. Reliance expects its 3G network to form an energy-saving platform that integrates mult ip le data s e r v i c e s ,
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including multi-media entertainment and remote medical care, monitoring, and education.
Huawei’s future-oriented GSM solution can smoothly upgrade Reliance’s GSM network to UMTS. The space reserved by the Huawei GSM BTS can house Huawei’s 3G UMTS RF module and baseband processing unit without changing the BTS, and without necessitating large scale, complex upgrades. A simple upgrade can support UMTS S2/2/2, and one cabinet can operate 2G and 3G networks in parallel.
The GSMA CEO, Rob Conway, po inted out tha t opera tor s shou ld benefit more people while minimizing their own environmental impact. With the ded i ca t ed suppor t o f Huawe i , Reliance has constructed a high-quality green RAN, which helps Indian people exchange informat ion anyt ime and anywhere. It saves resources, reduces the communications carbon footprint, and protects the environment. The door to green communications is now open, and Reliance’s green RAN marks a milestone in the development of mobile communications.Editor: Wang Hongjun [email protected]
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For the sake of
By Zhao Yuan
Iceland’s eco concernsf the world’s over 190 countries, Iceland not only boasts a unique and ultra-diverse natural landscape, but it is also the world’s fourth most productive
nation per capita. Situated to the north-west of the United Kingdom, this beautiful land of fire and ice resides on a plateau of mountains, glaciers, and sand fields. Iceland is enriched by its hot springs, geysers, active volcanoes, ice caps, snowfields, tundra, and waterfalls. Iceland’s income, social cohesion, and literacy reflect extremely high living standards. Unsurprisingly, its environmental record is exemplary, and Reykjavík, the most northerly national capital in the world, is remarkably smoke-free.
Nevertheless, Iceland’s inherent natural advantages belie a future that is not necessarily optimistic. A recent report released by the Icelandic Ministry for the Environment reveals that global warming is melting Iceland’s glaciers faster than ever before; it is estimated that they will have vanished completely by
the next century. Vatnajökull, which is located in the southeast, is Europe’s largest glacier. It covers 8,000 square kilometers and boasts a maximum thickness of 900 meters. However, this vast mass of ice is receding at 1 meter per year, and this rate is accelerating.
Global warming is therefore a key Icelandic concern. While the nation’s BTSs operate 24/7 to facilitate modern communication needs, the mobile field is facing increasing pressure to conserve energy and look towards to sustainable development. As such, Iceland’s leading mobile operator, Vodafone Iceland, made the commitment to upgrade its GSM network to a green mobile network, which helps to harmonize the natural and technological worlds.
Pioneer in fulfilling eco-commitments
Vodafone Iceland sprang from three local telecom companies and began to take shape in 2005. Iceland has a population of around 305,000, and Vodafone Iceland dominates the nation’s mobile
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market with a total subscriber base of roughly 120,000. However, despite its success, the company found itself in an unsustainable position prior to network overhaul: its 1997 network was aging rapidly, performance was outpaced by user demands, the complex network structure inhibited maintenance, and OPEX was elevated by high labor costs and inefficient energy consumption. Coupled with global warming, Vodafone Iceland had to make a decisive commitment to realizing an energy-efficient, sustainable network.
In May 2007, it selected Huawei to upgrade and optimize its network. In a scheme that required meticulous planning and design, Huawei’s future-oriented, energy-efficient solution involved replacing the legacy network BTSs with its green BTSs.
Huawei green BTS utilizes the most advanced broadband power amplification (PA) technology and PA chips to achieve energy and emission reduction. The peaks and lulls in mobile traff ic are accommodated by PA chips, which reduce static power consumption by over 60% during idle times. The new generation PA technology achieves a PA efficiency exceeding 45%. This not only beats the typical 40% common PA technology in Iceland’s S4/4/4 sites, but the new PA technology also greatly reduces heat generation. Moreover, the direct ventilation and natural cooling mechanisms realize an eco-friendly heat dissipation system that is far superior to traditional air conditioners and heat-exchange cooling systems.
The power consumption of the green BTS is around 950W, which is 40% less than the standard 1600W. Thus, each BTS saves at least 5700kWh electricity annually. For Vodafone Iceland’s 500 outdoor BTSs, 900,000 liters of diesel fuel are saved each year. Not only is the OPEX is dramatically reduced, but a l so the envi ronment benefits from energy savings and emission reductions.
In addition, the Huawei green BTS is of high-density, which allows a single module to support four to six carriers. The new BTS is smaller and lighter than the legacy BTS, which reduces requirements on auxiliary equipment, but delivers the same capacity. Huawei successfully reused
Vodafone Iceland’s sites, which protected the latter’s previous investment and shortened the cycle from network planning to commercial deployment to six weeks. Dramatic savings were also made in terms of both labor and material costs.
According to ABI Research, network optimization is the key to real iz ing opt imum energy ut i l i zat ion, under which meaningful advances in energy conservation and emission reductions can be made.
C o n s i d e r i n g I c e l a n d ’s s p e c i a l geographical features, Huawei proposed s o l u t i o n s f o r r e a l i z i n g o f f s h o r e communications and expanding offshore coverage to up to 120km. Through the dual timeslot cell expansion solution and by combining the power boost technology (PBT), transmit diversity, and the 4-way rece iver, the sys tem enhances both downlink gains and receive sensitivity, thus maintaining the uplink/downlink balance. Huawei engineers selected high altitude locations for antenna installation to widen offshore coverage and to reduce relative site numbers by 30%.
Given its long coastline and relatively cold temperatures, Iceland is subject to salty sea winds that can easily shorten a BTS’s service life through erosion. Thus, network BTSs are required to be water,
salt, and mildew resistant. Huawei green BTS operates normally between -40°C to 50°C, and is fully adaptable to Iceland’s unique natural environment.
The optimized network structure has greatly cut down O&M costs, and has s ignif icantly enhanced network performance. The call drop rate is 25% less than that of the legacy network, and network KPI shows across the board improvements, which has elevated both customer experience and satisfaction.
W i t h t h e i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f the Huawei green BTS and i t s eco-commitment, Vodafone Iceland can genuinely be considered a pioneer in environmental protection. Inspired by its example, it is likely that other operators will follow suit. If Iceland’s glaciers are to carve the eternal existence their majesty warrants, the efforts of all are necessary.
Vodafone’s green dream
Besides optimizing its networks through green base stations, Vodafone Iceland is striving to share the network with other operators to further reduce the number of BTSs in Iceland. At the end of 2007, the Huawei-constructed 3G network was put into operation and it is shared by Vodafone Iceland and Nova. This enables that the number of BTSs is 30% less in Iceland, while both Vodafone Iceland and Nova benefit from reduced TCO.
The who le Voda fone Group ha s adopted environmental protection as a core responsibility. In its Social Responsibility Report, the corporation makes a detailed commitment to environmental protection. It has pledged that its CO2 emissions will be cut by 40% and 50% respectively by 2011 and 2020. In fact, by optimizing and updating network equipment over the past few years, Vodafone has already cut its mobile network emissions by 12%. Vodafone will continue to adopt high-density BTSs and advanced technologies to update its networks and share resources with other operators. On the road to green communications, Vodafone has never stopped moving forward.
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Editor: Xu Ping [email protected]
The optimized network structure has greatly cut down O&M costs, and has significantly enhanced network performance. The call drop rate is 25% less than that of the legacy network, and network KPI shows across the board improvements, which has elevated both customer experience and satisfaction.
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America Movil’s new start
atin America is one of America Movil’s fastest growing mobile markets, yet its penetration rate is only 30%, which means that
this market has tremendous development potential. The YANKEE group predicts that data services will constitute about 16% of mobile services due to the growing demand for mobile broadband services in Latin America. Therefore, America Movil sees a continued expansion of the Latin American mobile market and views it as a long-term strategic target.
In Latin America, the average Panama citizen’s income is relatively high, but the current development level of the telecom industry is well below the medium level of what you would expect to find in a developed country. The number of mobile subscribers is approximately 1.6 million and continues to grow at a rate of about 26% each year, which clearly shows that there is still great development potential.
By Sun Yiran
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America Movil'snew start in Panama
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America Movil’s new start in Panama
With 153 million subscribers, America Movil is the largest mobile service provider in Latin America, and ranks as the fourth largest in the world. America Movil currently services over 770 million people in 17 countries and its business continues to expand at a rapid rate. With an abundance of operation experience and incomparable development strategy, America Movil currently dominants more than half of the Latin American market, and continually strives towards reaching even higher goals.
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In May o f 2008, Amer ica Movi l obtained a new mobile license to operate in Panama. In order to seize this golden opportunity, America Movil quickly mapped out a development strategy for constructing a nationwide network, the overall aim of which will be the merging of GSM and UMTS within three years time. In addition, another strategic concept of America Movil’s high-level administration is to evolve into a next generation network in the near future. Specifically, it will continue to strive to improve overall network performance and processing capability, by constructing a convergent and efficient IP-based network. Moreover, its overall aim will also be to elevate its core competitiveness and expand market shares via advanced technologies and services.
Consequently, based on America Movil’s strategic conception of evolution toward becoming a next generation network, Huawei proposes its Single RAN solution. That is, through a type of BTSs, a RAN that allows for the coexistence of multiple wireless systems can be constructed. As it happens, this solution effectually coincides with America Movil’s development strategy. Subsequently, America Movil became deeply fascinated by Huawei’s solution and decided to adopt it.
Constructing a green mobile network
Panama is an important transportation hub that links Central America to South America, and is commonly recognized as being “the bridge of the world”, with wel l-developed water, land, and air transportation systems. It is also a bustling tourist city with rigid environmental protection requirements established by the local government. In Panama, “Conserve energy and reduce emis s ion, to l e t technologies coexist with the environment” has become a social responsibility of America Movil. Thus, to achieve the above mentioned environmental protection requirements, America Movil enforces rigid rules in regards to the equipment and resources it utilizes for network construction.
Huawei’s Single RAN solution applies unified 4th generation BTSs, BSCs, operation and maintenance management, and site integration in order to achieve the convergence and evolution of different technology systems, so that America Movil will be able to construct a more simplified, carefree green mobile network in Panama.
First, the base station of the Single RAN solution allows GSM and UMTS BTSs to share the same platform, reduces construction cost by merging multiple systems, and supports the coexistence and smooth evolution of 2G and 3G networks. Hence, this type of base station can effectively help America Movil to save in terms of construction costs, implement unified maintenance, and shorten the project period, resulting in a reduction of over 30% in total cost of ownership (TCO).
Second, in Panama, America Movil needs to deploy over 600 sites. Traditional base stations consume a huge amount of electrical power. However, the base s tat ion of the Single RAN solut ion ut i l i zes DPD+Doher ty technology, which is commonly associated with advanced technology that manages power amplification (PA) consumption such as technologies used for intelligently shutting down the PA and dynamically adjusting the voltage of the PA. As a result, this enhances the efficiency of the RF PA by 50% and saves on power consumption by near ly 50%, when compared with traditional base stations. Therefore, America Movil should be able to save approximately 10 million kWh of electricity by deploying 600 green sites, which is equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 6,600 tons.
Furthermore, in Panama’s peak tourist season, the number of tourists sharply increases, which quickly leads to growing requirements and need for capacity expansion of base stations in urban areas. Accordingly, the base station of the Single RAN solution is highly modularized and integrated with baseband and RF modules. Multi-carrier and RF wideband technologies are adopted, which allows the capacity of the base station to be greatly expanded and the network coverage capacity to be enhanced by 30%. In
addition, the baseband module is 1U to 2U, but the capacity is over five times larger than that of a traditional base station; with the 60W MRRU, the size and weight of the RF module is unchanged, but its capacity is two or three times as large as that of the RF module of a traditional base station. Hence, this fully satisfies the requirements for a larger capacity for base stations located in urban areas during Panama’s peak tourist season. As a result, America Movil will be able to reduce its total number of base stations and auxiliary equipment by 50% when it deploys its nationwide mobile network in Panama.
In summary, by adopting innovative technologies such as a high-efficiency PA, multi-carrier, modularization, and temperature control, the Single RAN solution reduces power consumption by over 60% and helps America Movil implement energy, material and land conservation, along with a reduction in labor, thus, creating a win-win situation in terms of environmental protection and economic benefits. Furthermore, for smooth evolution of the network in the future, the Single RAN solution supports the HSPA and LTE, so that different systems can be supported only through software upgrades. In this way, the requirements of America Movil for network platform evolution, as well as long-term protection of its investment, are fundamentally satisfied.
America Movil has granted Huawei a two-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) concession. During the concession, Huawei will be completely responsible for the construction of the mobile network in Panama. Huawei’s Single RAN green solution helps America Movil for the first time to deploy an end-to-end All-IP network. It also enables America Movil to greatly enhance the bandwidth throughput of the whole system, and to deploy more flexible mobile broadband services. With the growing demand for data services, America Movil is striving to speed up its deployment of EDGE and HSPA services in order to attract more high-end users and to provide more diversified c o m m u n i c a t i o n s a n d m u l t i m e d i a experiences to its customers.Editor: Li Xuefeng [email protected]
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bridges the digital gulf in Pakistan
By Wang Yan & Zhang Jing
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Warid
Lying in the northwest region of the subcontinent of South Asia, Pakistan is a country where three fifths of its land mass is covered by upland and jagged mountain terrain. To its north, one finds a continuous array of
plateau meadows and fertile soil.Pakistan is a developing country, with agriculture producing
the mainstay of its economy. The government has undertaken numerous measures to help boost industrialization, shorten the gap that exists between the northern and southern parts, and significantly improve the living conditions of the poor. One of several measures is to enhance the development of the information and technology industry, so that most of the population will access to fixed and mobile communications.
Like most developing countries, Pakistan’s infrastructure is quite under-developed. In addition, its fixed communications industry has been developing rather slowly. The mobile communications, however, has been developing rapidly and is obviously replacing the fixed communications. At the same time, communication demands have been steadily increasing in small- and medium-sized cities, suburbs, rural areas, and mountain areas, forcing operators to enlarge network coverage.
However, power supply is difficult in most of the areas mentioned above, largely because the sites are remotely located. Hence, diesel generators are used in an effort to resolve this problem. Traditionally, 1+1 diesel generators are used to power BTS stations there. Besides emitting large volumes of harmful gas, the 1+1 diesel generators solution requires periodical refueling, bringing relatively high maintenance costs. Furthermore, in recent years, the international price for oil has risen sharply. The latest data shows that the price for diesel oil has increased by 71%, from 38 Rupees/L in early 2008, to about 65 Rupees/L in the last couple of months. Another factor for the sharp rise in prices is due to oil spills and oil thefts, which often occur in remoter areas.
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Huawei Communicate
In this situation, operators need a new power solution to enlarge network coverage in small- to medium-sized cities, suburbs, rural, and mountain areas.
First solar-powered macro-base station in Pakistan
In early 2008, Huawei’s 4th generation BTS and s ite solution attracted the attention of Warid Telecom. This solution features low power consumption and TCO, and utilizes a new energy source. Warid Telecom, the fastest growing GSM mobile operator in Pakistan, has 13 million subscribers in more than 180 countries. It is affiliated to the Abu Dhabi Group and has established a strategic alliance with SingTel. Huawei is working in close cooperation with Warid Telecom in an effort to support Warid’s continuous development and strengthen its market position.
Pakistan has an abundance of wealth in terms of solar energy. Therefore, in comparison with more traditional base stations, Huawei’s 4th generation BTS will be able to cut overall power consumption by 70%, which wi l l he lp to lay the foundation for the utilization of green energy such as solar energy.
After comparison and contrast of various factors, Warid Telecom finally decided to adopt Huawei’s solar-powered macro base s ta t ion, that i s , i t s 4th generation BTS, the DBS3900, which features a solar power supply system and a 3-day storage battery. By choosing this solution, the abundance of solar energy can be fully utilized and problems such as, high oil costs, oil spills, and theft can be resolved. Consequent ly, the need for maintenance will also decrease significantly, thus, alleviating pressure due to operation and maintenance costs, as well as improving the environmental protection capacity of mobile networks. And more importantly, it is a feasible solution to the realization of mobile communication for people living in remote areas.
In a combined effort to achieve national network coverage for Warid Telecom
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Editor: Xue Hua [email protected]
and to make Huawei’s vision “to enrich life through communication” come true, Warid Telecom and Huawei s tar ted network construction with 4th generation BTSs in April 2008.
A communication bridge for Theri Mirwah
In the remote village of Theri Mirwah, which is located in the southern part of Pakistan, is about two hours’ drive from Sukkur City; there live many friendly and hospitable people. Because of the remote location of the village and poor network coverage, people in this area are hard pressed to enjoy the convenience that communication networks provide. It is rather difficult to fuel and maintain diesel generators in remote areas like this. However, the annual average sunlight per day in this area is about 5.7 hours, so the use of solar power as a source to produce energy is very applicable. Therefore, the project team decided to construct its first solar-powered macro base station in this village.
The working conditions were very hard. The project team had to carry out their work in extremely high temperatures (60ºC). Yet it was comforting to find that all the arduous efforts were highly supported by the local residents. Zhang Jing, an Outsourcing Product Manager at Huawei Pakistan said, “During the project
implementation process, we met Ali and Faisal, who are brothers, and whose family has resided in this remote village for many generations. For them, mobile communications is a new luxury. When they saw that we were working under such harsh conditions, they led us to a classroom in an elementary school, turned on the fans, and offered us cool water to quench thirst.”
After two months’ hard work and repeated tests, Huawei’s solar-powered macro base station in Theri Mirwah was finally set up. Subsequently, when a few personnel from Warid Telecom arrived to inspect the base station, they all spoke very highly of Huawei’s solar power generated DBS3900, especially about its reasonable layout, construction, and the cable connection of the solar power supply system and the field-measured power. They praised Huawei for doing such a wonderful job.
As for Ali and Faisal, they excitedly stated, “Now we can make calls. We can conveniently call all our relatives in the city, and we have the chance to know more about things that are happening outside our village.” How they longed for better communication with the rest of the world.
If Huawei’s green base station and new energy solution could be applied all over the world, it would eliminate the digital gulf and build communication bridges for a lot more people living in remote areas.
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In 2007, China Mobile green-lighted the Green Action Plan as part of their ongoing commitment to reduce environmental impact. The plan tightly focuses on saving energy and decreasing emissions by building eco-friendly networks. By using alternative energy and adopting cutting-edge technologies on BTSs and sites, they have quickly implemented new networks in China.
By Zhou Jianguo, Zhang Qiang, Guan Yu & Pang Yingwen
China Mobile in action
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Huawei Communicate
“WFresh greenery by Qinghai Lake
ith perfect sincerity a n d i n t e g r i t y , we wi l l s t r i ve to fulf i l l our tr iple-
sided responsibilities: our economic responsibility, our social responsibility and our environmental responsibility.” China Mobile published its 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility Report in February 2008 in a commitment to equate its environmental responsibility with both its economic and social responsibilities. The Green Program, which derives from the Green Action Plan, has been ratified as one of China Mobile’s five major programs for 2008.
Focusing on energy saving and emission reduction, the Plan was initiated in early December 2007. Its implementation is based on strategic partnerships with Huawei, three other main equipment suppliers, and over ten auxiliary equipment suppliers. This article provides an account of the Green Mobile Network jointly constructed by Huawei and China Mobile on the picturesque edge of Qinghai Lake.
Green mobile network
Qinghai is a province of China, named after Qinghai Lake. It borders Tibet Autonomous Region on the southwest. China Mobile Qinghai’s legacy GSM ne twork was ma in ly suppor t ed by European equipment suppliers. Ageing equipment, however, has resulted in high energy consumption by the network BTSs which, coupled with unsatisfactory communication quality, has emerged as a long-standing problem for China Mobile.
In order to promote network quality and save energy, China Mobile Qinghai and Huawei launched their GSM network adjustment and expansion project in April 2008. Extending across Xining City (the capital of Qinghai Province) and a number of other cities, the scheme involves more than 400 BTSs and is integral to the realization of the Green Action Plan. Moreover, it solidifies China Mobile’s selection of Huawei to construct its green
trial network in Qinghai.Fo r o p e r a t o r s a n d e q u i p m e n t
suppliers, the green mobile network embodies a complex system that aims to extend beyond simply reducing energy consumption. It must a lso sat i s fy a multitude of requirements spanning energy, materials, land, and labor saving. The green network also seeks to reduce operating expenditure (OPEX) and control CO2 emissions in a win-win balance of environmental protection and economic benefits.
The green mobile network is achievable via a number of measures. Init ial ly, advanced technolog ie s such a s the Distributed Base Station (DBS) can be applied to the main BTS equipment to realize energy savings and flexible deployment potential. In addition, software upgrades can facilitate the capacity of the major equipment to support multiple systems, reuse hardware, and maximally protect long-term investment.
Secondly, adjustments to intelligent ventilation facilities are necessary to improve equ ipment room and s i t e construction. Methods such as direct ventilation and natural heat dissipation reduce equipment rooms’ air conditioning requirements, while integrated equipment shelter curtails total energy consumption.
Thirdly, natural, clean energy such as solar, wind, and firedamp energy must be applied to BTSs to realize zero CO2
emissions.
Making green action a reality
China Mobile Qinghai’s energy saving and emission reduction trial network will verify the green mobile network solution in three major ways: BTS equipment, sites, and green energy.
BTS energy savings: the origins•
It is well known that the mobile access layer uses 90% of the energy totally consumed in a mobile network. High energy-demanding equipment elevates the energy consumed by auxiliary facilities and air-conditioners in equipment rooms, and consequently increases the whole system’s total energy usge. Energy savings
afforded by BTS equipment are integral to network-wide savings, given that only BTSs can reduce the power needs of auxiliary facilities and air-conditioners. Moreover, green energy sources can only be applied to BTSs which consume low amounts of power.
Huawei’s green GSM BTS achieves energy saving and emission reduction in four layers. In the first layer, the BTS employs the power amplification chip and the Doherty-enhanced power amplifier, which are both highly-efficient culminations of the latest technology. Together these have elevated power amplifier efficiency from 33% in 2006 to present levels of 45%, which is forecast to rise to 50% in 2009. In the second layer, green energy-saving software prevents emission and efficiently reduces static power consumption by more than 60% thanks to shutdown technologies such as TRX, timeslot, and channel shutdown. In the third layer, the BTS adopts multi-dens i ty TRX and broadband rad io frequency technologies to allow a single module to support between four and six carrier frequencies. This gives rise to a smaller and lighter BTS that is less dependent on auxiliary equipment. In the fourth layer, the DBS’s Base Band Unit (BBU) can be installed in the reserved space of existing site equipment, such as in the Advanced Power Management (APM) cabinet and the transmission cabinet. At the same time, the RRU can be freely installed on a pole, on a tower, or against a wall.
The Qinghai Lake green network project adopts a series of Huawei’s low-energy GSM BTS products, including the BTS3012E, the industry’s most energy-efficient macro BTS; the Quadruple Transceiver Unit (QTRU) that supports multi-density TRX module; and the distributed BTS-DBS3036.
The BTS3012E incorporates green energy-saving software that reduces S4/4/4 GSM BTS power to 1000W. This compares with the power of other identically configured GSM BTSs that is 1600W on average. A single BTS3012E saves as much as 5694kWh of energy every year. The average electricity generator
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produces 1kWh of power for every 300g of coal used. In these terms, a single BTS can save 1.7 tons of coal a year.
The BTS3012E introduces the latest multi-density transceiver QTRU, the appl ica t ion of which pos i t ions the BTS3012E as the world’s densest BTS. A single basic cabinet supports at most 36 carrier frequencies, or 6 QTRUs, and is able to support a maximum configuration of S12/12/12. The number of cabinets can be reduced by a third, mitigating the conflict between increasingly high traffic and relatively few equipment rooms. Not only are significant CAPEX savings achieved, but standard energy consumption per carrier frequency reduces from 150W/TRX to 55W/TRX.
The DBS3036 comprises the BBU and the Remote Radio Unit (RRU), which combine IP65 outdoor protection and natural heat dissipation. The BBU can be installed against a wall or in any 19-inch cabinet, such as the outdoor APM, while the RRU is installed near to antenna feeders. The two units are connected via optical fibers, which effectively expedites network construction by negating the need for equipment rooms. This solution significantly reduces auxiliary costs and energy consumption.
Green site construction•
G e n e r a l l y, b r i c k a n d c o n c r e t e equipment rooms entail considerable time and energy investments in terms of construction, decoration, and other civil engineering.
Based on its experience in various network construction scenarios and with the construction of a genuinely green site in mind, Huawei delivered its Integrated Te l e communica t ion She l t e r ( ITS) solutions in late 2007.
The ITS provides customers with comprehensive equipment room solutions, which integrate all network and auxiliary equipment, and feature rapid deployment capabilities, low energy consumption, minimized TCO, and high reliability. The ITS1000 and ITS2000 are mutually complementary, and completely lack deployment restrictions, accommodating all terrain including mountains, roofs, and
plains.In this project, the Yanxiao site uses
ITS2000 equipment shelter. The ITS2000 forms an integrated communication equipment room based on 10- inch standardized containers. It provides a reliable network operating environment, is theft resistant, accelerates site construction, and reduces energy use.
Green energy: nature’s gift•
Wind and solar power describe two inexhaustible energy sources yielded by nature. Given the increasingly severe global energy pressures, attention is shifting to natural energy sources. This drives technological development in this field, enabling the gradual application of wind and solar power to the communications arena.
Qinghai Province lies in the northwest of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the center of northwest China. The whole province sits on a plateau, from which it derives two particular climatic features: 1) intense solar radiation and 2) abundant wind energy. Qinghai is one of the most solar intensive provinces in China, receiving over 2,500 hours of sunshine per year, rendering its solar radiation resources one of the highest nationally. Meanwhile, the western region of the Qingnan plateau and the central and western Qilian mountains create average windspeeds that exceed 4m/s. Moreover, wind power utilization potential exceeds over 5,000 hours across the central and western parts of Qingnan plateau, the Caidam basin, the environs of Qinghai Lake, and the southern area of Hainan mesa.
This unique climate provides the mobile network with rich, natural green energy resources. The complementary wind and solar sources culminate in a comparatively steady power output system that requires no material costs and little maintenance within the lifecycle of its solar power components and wind power generator.
For example, in the Jiayi Village, the network covers all the major lines along Qinghai Lake, which is surrounded by grass land. To ensure required coverage in the tourist season, this scheme adopted the S2/2/4 BTS. This BTS reduced
equipment energy consumption to 600W, which laid the foundations for wind and solar energy deployment. To react to solar power interruptions caused by spells of continuous rain, the site implements wind energy as an alternative, thus improving the BTS’s reliability. This solution adopts two 1000W wind power generators, twenty-two 160W solar power battery boards, and one group of 12,000AH batteries, which guarantee three days’ backup power.
Entering into the green telecom era
In November, 2007, China Mobile cooperated with Huawei to successfully complete GSM network coverage for Mount Everest . Under this scheme, solar power was deployed as the BTS power supply system in several sites. This provides a firm example of the green ethos becoming reality. The beginning of December, 2007 marked the inception of the strategic Green Action Plan agreement between China Mobile and Huawei. The two companies have since been closely cooperating to save energy and reduce emission in a wide range of projects spanning BTSs, core networks, logistics, and business-to-business. Moreover, China Mobile and Huawei have united to construct energy saving and emission reduction tr ia l off ices in a range of domestic locations including Sichuan and Qinghai. This demonstrates the partners’ joint commitment to implement green schemes and protect the environment.
Mining city gets green
Jixi City, a predominantly coal-mining city of one million population in the northeast of China, expanded their large capacity base stations in the downtown area with equipment rooms that are 83% smaller while cutting energy usage by 70%. Moreover, Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) was realized in the entire network and the over -80dBm coverage areas grew from 76.40% to 94.88%.
Breaking the bottleneck
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Jix i i s the second larges t mining a r e a i n C h i n a . L i k e m a n y o t h e r areas in the country, there i s rapid economic development, fast-growing mobile communications traffic, and communications networks are struggling to keep pace. China Mobile Jixi had an urgent need for bigger capacity and network modifications, and turned to Huawei for an innovative solution after hitting a bottleneck.
The original equipment used a lot of energy and consequently was expensive to operate. In addition, they were at odds with the national energy conservation and environmental protection guidelines. Poor equipment performance and complex networking lead to a continuous rise in operation and maintenance expenditures. The most troublesome issue was that equipment rooms were already full and had no room for expansion. Promotion of network capacity and performance conflicted with energy conservation and the available space.
In April 2008, without extra space for the equipment room or more energy consumption, China Mobile Jixi handily completed the expansion of large-capacity base stations in the downtown area with significantly enhanced performance. The multi-density Huawei QTRU base station made it seamless.
Green communications
The innovative multi-density QTRU base station is a type of energy saving base station featuring large capacity, small size and low power consumption. This type of base station lets the operator swiftly upgrade the inefficient original mobile network to a high performance future-oriented green communications network.
China Mobile Jixi is now strategically green. During development, a network needs to be expanded every two or three years and the traditional small-capacity GSM base station requires more and more cabinets. If the original equipment room has no extra space, renting a new equipment room is necessary with a corresponding increase in network construction and operation expenditures. The expansion becomes more difficult and
The innovative multi-density QTRU base station is a type of energy saving base station featuring large capacity, small size and low power consumption. This type of base station lets the operator swiftly upgrade the inefficient original mobile network to a high performance future-oriented green communications network.
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Energy conservation and emission reduction•
The QTRU base station consumes 50% less power than a traditional base station, and the equipment room air conditioners have less to do, making the reduction even greater.
The poorly integrated original equipment used by China Mobile Jixi took up a lot of space. Before replacement, the power consumption per cabinet was 1,500W, with a 36-carrier base station reaching upwards of 6,000W. A Huawei 36-carrier QTRU base station consumes only 2,000W. The overall power consumption per site then drops by 70%, thanks to less power used by the air conditioners.
The QTRU base station truly helps create a green communications network, cutting OPEX with energy conservation and emission reduction.
Promoting performance and the future•
In addition to the advanced power amplification and multi-carrier technologies, the QTRU base station uses advanced digital IF combiner technology to avoid using a traditional combiner, preventing -3dB losses in the high power RF combiner.
The QTRU base station can dynamically adjust the power of each carrier according to the distance between the subscriber and the base station, allowing for a large capacity and wide coverage. China Mobile Jixi used the QTRU base stations to modify the original network to a green mobile network and overall network performance was markedly enhanced. Network coverage is up by 1%. EDGE is realized in the whole network, paving the way to the mobile Internet era.
Energy conse r va t ion and env i ronmenta l protection is a social responsibility for all people. Huawei is implementing a green communications strategy and will invest more in R&D, innovatively designing large capacity base stations with sound performance, high integration, and low power consumption. The success of the Huawei multi-density QTRU base station at China Mobile Jixi definitely colors mobile communications a brighter shade of green.
We only have one earth. For the sake of future generations who will inherit our environmental legacy, Huawei looks to confidently stride into the green telecom era in the spirit of cooperation.
Editor: Liu Zhonglin [email protected]
more expensive.In addition, to build a network with large
capacity, sound coverage and good performance, a mobile operator has to deploy thousands of base stations. Traditional base stations use a lot of power, making major mobile operators big spenders on energy. Not only do they have growing OPEX, but are also perceived as wasting energy, neither reducing emissions nor protecting the environment.
To meet the telecom network development, Huawei has rolled out solutions that are green and energy saving.
In the third quarter of 2007, Huawei rolled out the GSM multi-density QTRU base station, adopting advanced DPD+Doherty digital power amplification and 3G multi-carrier technologies. At the time of this printing, Huawei is the only vendor who is able to provide the multi-density GSM base station.
The Huawei multi-density QTRU is a type of green base station with large capacity, small size and low power consumption. With the same size of a traditional 12-carrier base station, the multi-density QTRU has three times the capacity. One QTRU RF module supports the processing of six carrier signals and one full-configured QTRU base station supports 36 carriers, while using 50% less power.
For example, to build an S12/12/12 site, three 12-carrier cabinets are typically required, but only one QTRU cabinet is needed. According to 2007 statistics, the typical power consumption of an S12 base station is about 1,300W, whereas a traditional S12/12/12 site consumes about 3,900W. However, the typical power consumption of a Huawei S12/12/12 QTRU base station is 2,000W, or uses nearly 50% less power than a traditional station.
Saving space and cutting maintenance •
At many sites, one QTRU base station can replace three to six traditional base stations. Generally, the configuration of a single QTRU base station exceeds S10/10/10. In most cases, S12/12/12 full configuration is adopted. As a result, the space for two to five base stations is available for future expansion or for 3G base stations. Expenditure on expansion or 3G network building is lowered.
If the capacity of a base station does not reach 36 carriers, a software upgrade can lessen the expansion workload. In the China Mobile Jixi project, 70% less cabinets were needed, from 196 cabinets to 53. It is safe to say that fewer cabinets mean less maintenance hours.
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Huawei Communicate
Creating green sitesBy Zhang Qiang
he success of the 2008 Beijing Olymp i c Games fu l f i l l ed the dreams of the Chinese people, and having a “Green
Olympic” showed the considerable strides the government took to protect the environment and reduce pollution.
With the explosive growth of the mobile communications industry, the proportion of power consumed by the sites is rising exponentially with the total amount of power consumed by the entire nationwide network. Energy conservation and emission reduction, and eco-friendly sites are now of prime consideration in network construction.
the communications equipment and air-conditioning system. These are two key factors in optimizing energy conservation: lowering the power consumption of communications equipment and the air-conditioning system, plus simultaneous use of new energy based on the situation at the site.
Cutting base station power consumption
By using a high frequency digital power amplifier, Huawei improves by 45% the efficiency of power amplification in the base station, which is the first and most
A site is the collective name for the access layer in mobile communications. The construction of communication sites includes station equipment, auxiliary equipment and project construction. A green site not only fully provides the services a base station offers, but also saves energy and reduces waste.
Energy conservation and emission reduction
Generally, more than 90% of the power consumption of the station comes from
T
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important step to achieving a green site solution. Based on the distributed design, Huawei base stations can be installed on the tower to reduce feeder loss. Power consumption is reduced by 20% with the same coverage for each station. Every station can save electricity of 5700kWh per year, equal to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide produced by 1.7 tons of coal.
Less air-conditioning
Based on actual local climate conditions, Huawei uses direct ventilation, intelligent ventilation and heat exchange for heat dissipation in the equipment rooms to reduce the need for traditional air-conditioning.
These measures make full use of convection air to exchange indoor heat with outdoors, and efficiently reduce power consumption whi le maintaining temperature control. For the dustproof design of the direct ventilation system, Huawei uses a dedicated fan filter for optimum filtering. This type of fan filter has a large capacity for dust containment and is designed to withstand high winds, while generating slight resistance. The loss of wind pressure is less than 25%. A fan filter installed outside the window frame makes it easy to remove and clean, ensuring clean air quality in the equipment rooms.
Making full use of clean energy
The large scale application of solar, wind and other alternative energies can also lend a hand in reducing power consumption at sites.
Huawei has different green energy solutions that cater to different conditions, including solar energy, solar-wind hybrid power and solar-diesel combination. All of which are especially applicable for small-capacity outdoor stations where it is difficult to get electricity from the grid.
Compared with a diesel generator, a solar system not only reduces the emission of carbon dioxide, but also reduces maintenance and repair expenses. The extra investment is recouped usually in three to five years, paving the way to enhanced profits down the road.
The application of green energies depends heavily on the local climate and geographical conditions. At the beginning of 2008, China Mobile Qinghai installed a Huawei solar-wind hybrid power supply system at the Jiayi Road Administration site.
The power consumption of the main equipment is 600W. The solar-wind hybrid power supply system is equipped with 22 solar panels, two 1KW wind generators, and a set of 1200AH storage batteries. Test results from the site show that the solar-wind hybrid power supply system provides 25.92kWh of electricity daily. The generated electricity is more than enough for the site requirements and provides the storage batteries and other gears 18.17kWh per day. The fully charged storage batteries can support 99 hours of normal equipment operation.
Intelligent management
Site management is very important after network construction. As the number of sites increases, so does the maintenance, and the cost of traditional site construction is comparatively high.
Operators with limited investment, cannot monitor or manage auxiliary equipment, or the environment, and are largely unaware of equipment status at the site. If there are any faults, equipment theft or out-of-service situations, maintenance technicians usually cannot handle the problem in time. The life cycle of equipment is lessened while the cost of maintenance increased, not to mention the resulting customer complaints.
Creating green sites
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Editor: Xu Peng [email protected]
The Huawei solution is to design the site management unit and site network management system to achieve intelligent management. The network management unit realizes intelligent management of the auxiliary equipment. The site network management realizes the central management and maintenance of the entire network by accessing the main equipment network management platform, and unifies the platform for management and maintenance.
The intelligent management system can monitor the status of the power supply equipment, power distribution equipment, storage battery, generator, green energy and a i r - cond i t i on ing s y s t em. The temperature, fire alarm, burglar alarm and other environmental information are also monitored in order to reduce maintenance and achieve site self-monitoring. Intelligent management captures every fault in the site to make operations secure.
The intelligent access control system supplies the authorization management and security management to maintenance personnel. The transmission and network topology of the intelligent management system are applicable to any networking requirement in any condition. It also supports the remote data load and remote upgrade, which are quite convenient for upgrades and maintenance.
The heavy blizzards in 2008 in southern China caused base stations out of service in large areas. The main reason was that the storage batteries were excessively
discharged because of not having power for a long time.
If the base stations had the intelligent management system, service outages of some important stations could have been avoided. Before a storage battery was total ly discharged, the network management platform would have detected it. According to the degree of importance, operators could then send generators to the sites to keep them running.
Intelligent management is currently the trend in site management. There will
If the base stations had the intelligent management system, service outages of some important stations could have been avoided. Before a storage battery was totally discharged, the network management platform would have detected it.
eventually be “unmanned base stations” with high reliability and safe operations, as well as lower operating and maintenance costs.
Fast deployment
During site construction, operators face many problems, such as taking up too large an area, long construction period and difficult transportation, causing a waste of time, energy, and money. For a solution, Huawei provides shelters and containers to realize fast service deployment and assist operators.
The shelters and containers enable all base station functions. Compared with the traditional equipment rooms, they are smaller, easy to transport, highly centralized and easy to install. At the beginning of 2008, Huawei established two sample sites for China Mobile Qinghai. A shelte r was installed at the Dazhong Supermarket site while a container was used for the Yanxiao Village site.
The shelter at the Dazhong Supermarket site uses a modular design, which is convenient for transportation and installation. The shelter has fewer environmental limitations, making site construction simple. The equipment inside is precisely arranged to conserve space and power, plus the installation time is reduced to one day by only four people.
The container at the Yanxiao Village is a standard 10 inch container and can be transported and installed as a whole, and is well protected against theft. The station and all auxiliary equipment have already been integrated and tested in the factory, which enables complete installation in four hours by one person. Containers are installed for network flexibility and can be transported at anytime, reducing investment and other expenditures for operators.
Huawei provides operators with real site solutions, which are “green, intelligent and fast”. These solutions help operators to reap the benefits of truly green sites while solving the problems of excessive power consumption, long construction time, and high maintenance costs.
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Making “green” telecom real
By Huang Lu
Emissions of pollutants are on the rise along with energy consumption. The International Energy Agency stated that, due to increased energy consumption during the period from 1973 to 2005, combined emissions rose by 68% and CO2 emissions by 73%.
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Making “green” telecom real
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here is currently a global concern about global warming caused specifically by the CO2 fueled greenhouse effect and the role
that pollution plays in the weather and environment. Some scientists say global warming is also intensifying naturally extreme weather patterns like typhoons, floods, severe droughts, and changes in sea levels and marine biology. Therefore, “green” movement in the telecom industry is essential to us all.
Many governments worldwide including China have taken action to cut energy consumption and emissions. The “Eleventh Five-year Plan” proposes that by 2010, energy consumption should be reduced by around 20% and total emissions cut by 10%.
Telecom turns “green”
The energy consumed by core network equipment, power systems, switching/site offices, data centers, and equipment like mobile terminals take up an increasingly larger proportion in total energy consumption. The telecom industry has its share of social responsibility and the entire industry is striving to conserve energy and reduce emissions.
In 2007, China Mobile launched the “Green Action Plan” focusing on energy conservation and emission reduction, entering into a cooperative strategic agreement with Huawei, three other mobile telecom equipment vendors, and some mainstream accessory vendors.
They will set up a special joint work team, create a new cooperative model focused on energy conservation and emission reduction, and design a system with specified conservation and emission reduction indicators.
New technologies can minimize the amount, size and weight of equipment, will be more integrated and consume less energy. Cooperative in-depth research will be conducted in product design, R&D, production, testing, market demands and promotion. Selection of components and upstream raw materials suppliers for energy conservation and emission reduction, all lead ultimately to environmental protection and a superb team effort.
In the upcoming two or three years,
subs tant i a l p rogre s s wi l l be made . Consumption will be cut and resources utilized efficiently to form a green industrial chain and the Blue Ocean Strategy* (finding untapped market space) will be implemented throughout the entire industry.
“Green Huawei, Green Telecom, Green World”
Huawei’s new slogan shows their commitment to actively participate in formulating and adhering to international environmental standards and regulations, research into energy conservation technology, and a focus on occupational health.
Huawei has built an end-to-end system to ensure environmentally-friendly telecom equipment. The evaluation of the effects of energy conservation and emission reduction through the entire life cycle from material procurement, design and production, and supply chain to operation and recycling is made possible by the system.
After making a detailed analysis of the energy consumption characteristics of mobile networks, Huawei proposed specific solutions covering three operational scenarios of mobile networks: green access, green core network (CN), and the “6R” strategy.
Green access
90% of energy consumption in the mobile network comes from wireless access. Equipment with high energy consumption also increases accessory power consumption and equipment room air conditioners, resulting in more consumption by the entire system.
The green BTS solution developed by Huawei is an integrated solution for reducing energy consumption from overall network planning and optimization to individual BTS planning and optimization.
The solution makes full use of gain enhancement technology such as PBT, transmitting diversity, AMR, 4-way RD, and high receiver sensitivity; it can improve signal coverage by 40% and reduce BTS construction by 30%, cutting total network energy consumption by 26%.
Huawei is a strong advocate of the All-IP network concept. A/lu interfaces over IP
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and whole network VoIP save as much as 60% of the transmission bandwidth and at least 40% of OPEX for mobile operators.
Huawei wireless access equipment supports the local switch. Combined with the MSC Pool technique, a large-capacity MSC can replace several ordinary MSCs, saving space in the equipment room. One success story is the Sichuan Mobile network in China that switched to large-capacity MSCs and now saves up to 80% compared to ordinary MSCs.
Huawei launched its own green BTS, controlling energy consumption from four aspects and solving the problem of high energy consumption by BTS equipment.
New power amplifier chips and the enhanced Doherty power amplifying technique were adopted for the BTS, raising the amplification efficiency to 45% from 33% in 2006. Efficiency is expected to exceed 50% in 2009.
Also, the carr ier shutdown, t ime slot shutdown, and channel shutdown techniques are adopted in the green power conservation software, cutting down static energy consumption by more than 60%. The reduction during low-traffic hours is another big energy saver.
In addition, the high-density carrier and RF bandwidth techniques are adopted in the BTS. Thus, a single module can support four to six carriers. The new BTS, compared with the former BTS of the same capacity, is smaller in volume, lighter in weight, and has lower requirements for accessory facilities such as backup power.
The BBUs of the distributed BTS can be directly installed in the space reserved in the existing BTS equipment such as the Advanced Power Management (APM) and transmission cabinets, and RRUs can be
affixed on poles, installed on the towers, or mounted to the walls.
The BTS is powered by non-polluting solar and wind energy. The wind and solar hybrid energy solution deployed by Huawei in Qinghai, China has supplied environmentally-friendly power for all of the BTSs around Qinghai Lake.
Huawei has also launched a series of thermal management solutions, including the combination of the integrated equipment room, intelligent ventilation, and single point temperature control, to meet the needs for different types of BTSs, solve energy problems, and utilize energy efficiently.
Green core network
Traditional CN architecture is complicated due to multiple layers and a large number of NEs, leading to high energy consumption for the entire network.
Traditional servers use a lot of power. With evolution of network technology, the network calls for more and more servers with an exponential spike in consumption. Another problem is that high temperatures are death to servers and needs to be considered when planning efficient thermal management in CN equipment rooms. Because more air conditioners are needed and the equipment room layout is unsuitable, lean thermal management of equipment rooms is hard to implement. Without energy saving servers it is impossible to take further conservation measures and reduce emissions.
To tackle these problems, Huawei delivered the green CN solution in order to optimize the CN architecture, reduce the network layers, minimize the number of NEs, and move the large CN equipment rooms to an upper layer. This saves energy Editor: Pan Tao [email protected]
and cuts OPEX. In addition, the highly integrated carrier-grade ATAE platform can be adopted step by step to replace the traditional servers, enhancing reliability and further reducing the amount of energy used by equipment. It is more resistant to higher temperature and equipment rooms can make better use of cold air and minimize the use of air conditioners.
The “6R” strategy
“Packaging and logistics technology innovation” is the core of the “6R” strategy as well as an important part of the “Green Action Plan” of China Mobile.
Huawei implements the “6R” strategy for green packaging and logistics in keeping with its promise on environmental protection.
The first two, Recovery & Recycle are aimed at recycling resources and energy through the application of environmentally-friendly and recyclable packaging materials.
Right & Reduce refers to using reasonable and right packaging design with small and lightweight cartons, cutting down on packaging and transportation costs.
Returnable & Reuse refers to the extension of the life cycle of packaging materials from the operations support system through an effective recycling system.
In a bid to build a green industrial chain with China Mobile and guided by the “6R” strategy, Huawei and China Mobile have developed a visual green packaging product—the returnable frame. Based on Huawei’s annual shipping volume, after the “Green Action Plan” of China Mobile is implemented, 12,000 cubic meters of lumber, 2.70 million liters of petroleum, and 0.75 million kWh of power will be saved in addition to 6.172 million tons of CO2 emissions kept out of the atmosphere every year.
Huawei is striving to live up to its slogan, “Green Huawei, Green Telecom, and Green World”. We only have one earth. Protect it for the common good and make all of our “green” dreams come true.
(* From the book, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, authored by W. Chan Kim.)
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60%
80%
100%
120%
Fig. 1 Comparison of indicators between recyclable and traditional packaging materials
Traditional packaging Recyclable packaging
Timber use decreases 50%
Efficiency increases over 5 times
Timber use Weight LCA cost Lifespan Operational efficiency
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The green CDMA base station
By Liu Silu
Green power, environmental protection and emission reduction are currently the hottest key words in the telecom industry. For CDMA networks, the need to balance these three factors while reducing CAPEX and OPEX has become imperative.
Base station has the major role
n a l y s i s o f e x p e n d i t u r e s o n C D M A n e t w o r k s i t e construction shows that base stations make up 30% of the
total costs, while auxiliary device costs correspond to base stations. If the base stations are of smaller size and have higher power efficiency, investment, and network construction costs will be less. Optimized base stations also help to reduce OPEX.
Take one site for instance. The network operation and maintenance (O&M) data show that the power costs closely relate to the base station. The base station and the air conditioner use about 93% of the power; while the power consumption index of a base station greatly affects the air conditioner’s capacity. Therefore, it is wise to start with the base station when building an eco-friendly CDMA network with less construction and O&M costs.
H u a w e i h a s r o l l e d o u t s o m e outstanding green CDMA base station s o l u t i o n s t h a t f e a t u r e i n n ova t i v e techniques and materials, which can help operators overcome challenges and smoothly construct a green network. Operators can now greatly benefit in terms of network planning and maintenance, energy conservation and environmental protection.
Multi-methods to lower costs
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Multi-mode convergence
With the rapid development of wireless communications technologies and product upgrades, protecting equipment investment is critical.
The shift from one communication mode to another is not uncommon. Each communication mode has its advantages, but employing multiple modes also brings risks; therefore, multi-mode convergence has become a predominant force in mobile network development.
A conventional CDMA base station mainly consists of the baseband module, transmit and receive module, combiner, transmission module, and O&M module. Its large size and complicated cabling and installation slow down network construction and expansion.
To overcome these obstacles, Huawei CDMA base station uses open CPRI interfaces and consists only of a baseband module and a radio module. These two modules, connected by fibers, enhance the flexibility of network deployment. The baseband module is only 2U and can be conveniently installed in existing devices such as the auxiliary power supply cabinet, transmission equipment cabinet, or other remote equipment cabinets. The radio module is light enough to be installed on a tower, pole, or against a wall.
Because the radio module can be installed flexibly on a tower, the conventional feeder is no longer used, which enables a closer antenna interface and avoids a 3dB loss. Higher power efficiency increases the coverage by 40% and helps drastically reduce O&M costs and the number of sites. This makes seamless multi-mode convergence a distinct possibility.
Modular design and multi-mode convergence are the cornerstones of Huawei’s creative, eco-friendly CDMA base station solution. A series of base stations with different capacities for different sites share just three types of modules. Software upgrades enable interoperability of different telecom systems sharing the same platform, and operator investment is protected.
Multi-carrier
Huawei’s eco-friendly CDMA base station uses advanced multi-carrier technologies. One module can support up to eight carriers, and multiple carriers can share one antenna system without a combiner, allowing for a much smaller size.
The outdoor base station ranging from S1/1/1 to S8/8/8 needs only two small cabinets, occupying an area of 0.3m2 and a size of 0.32 m3. This type of base station cuts CAPEX and shortens network planning and deployment time.
Cabling between multiple modules is simplified, making stack installation of base stations possible, network construction and expansion easier, and engineering less. What’s more, there are lower costs for transportation,
storage, parts, backup battery, and equipment installation.
Eco-friendly technologies
Power consumption is an essential parameter in measuring the impact on the environment and in the manufacturing and application process for the base station. Technological innovations can definitely improve the efficiency of communications equipment and reduce energy use.
Doherty technology is currently the most advanced power amplification technology in the telecom industry. Based on Doherty technology, Huawei combines digital pre-distortion correction with optimized power amplification to enhance the efficiency of a RF amplifier to maximum levels. The efficiency of the RF amplifier rises by 33% and upwards to 40%. Intelligent carrier control technology also helps to lower power consumption.
Take a typical CDMA S3/3/3 base station for example. The power consumption of a conventional base station is 2,200W and currently the average is 1,800W.
Huawei’s eco-friendly base station consumes only 850W, saving over 8,000kWh each year. Multiplied by one thousand base stations, the savings is 8 million kWh per year. This means saving more than USD8,760,000 on wireless equipment, while eliminating 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This win-win solution cuts costs, protects the environment, lowers energy costs, and reduces noise pollution, electromagnetic interference and radiation.
The base station designed with high efficiency and low power consumption substantially enhances cooling performance and reduces noise pollution. Special cabinet design and embedded direct-cooling technology further lower power consumption, noise and electromagnetic radiation, and lessen environmental impact. With the help of a mini air conditioner, the storage battery temperature can be lowered by 10°C, hence the base station can operate properly in an environment higher than the room temperature, without harming the battery.
In addition, the eco-friendly outdoor micro base station can work with solar or wind power. By fully using natural energy sources, there is less power consumption and it is even better for the environment.
In July 2008, PCCW, a leading operator in Hong Kong, selected Huawei to build Hong Kong’s first CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev.A network. Based on the contract, Huawei will provide eco-friendly 4G multi-mode CDMA base stations to help PCCW roll out future-oriented services. The network construction, divided into three phases, will cover the central districts of Hong Kong. When completed, PCCW will provide visitors to Hong Kong with seamless CDMA roaming services and rich multi-media data services.
Editor: Chen Yuhong [email protected]
The green CDMA base station
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Constructing a green core networkBy Wu Yanning
he telecom industry is hi-tech, energy-hungry, and expanding. Networks are growing in size as social and economic progress
enables more people than ever to access telecom services. The deployment of network equipment on a massive scale has led to a steady increase in raw material use, pollution, and energy consumption. In 2007, for example, China Telecom consumed more than 20 billion kWh of electricity at a cost of over USD1.47 billion. Such high costs impact the profit and development of telecom enterprises and also ref lect an environmental ly unsustainable trend. Reducing material w a s t e , e n e r g y c o n s u m p t i o n , a n d pollution are now at the forefront of the communications industry.
The core network represents a control, connection, and management center for all services. Located in the central equipment room, it features a high capacity AC/DC power system coupled with a huge cooling and heat dissipation system. The core network is the major network power consumer and carbon emitter. Optimizing core network equipment, including all auxiliary equipment, not only reduces OPEX, but also helps operators fulfill the social responsibility that has now become an integral part of corporate culture.
Green in every way
Hu a w e i ’s n e w - g e n e r a t i o n c o r e network is a resource-sharing, integrated All-IP communications platform. It utilizes advanced software and hardware
technologies to form an eco-friendly, future-oriented platform designed for core network equipment and applications. It is a streamlined, optimized system that meets the growing complexity of operators’ commercial needs, meets environmental s t andards , and reduce s OPEX and CAPEX.
High efficiency hardware
The solution marries high-density and energy-eff icient platforms with green equipment components to achieve environmental protection goals and lower OPEX.
The in t eg ra t ed , open p l a t fo rms
e f f e c t i v e l y m e e t t h e i n c r e a s i n g l y complicated business needs of operators; its enhanced efficiency per user enable the number of users per frame to raise threefold.
The Huawei ASIC decreases power consumption per TC channel by 40%, the solution’s 40W eight-core CPU replaces the 35W dual-core CPU, and the 1W Flash hard disk is the eco successor of the 10W serial SCSI. In terms of overall design, the board- and rack-level heat dissipation function and rack-level fan both serve to lower power consumption and increase heat dissipation efficiency. The solution reduces power consumption per user by at least 30%.
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Editor: Xu Ping [email protected]
Optimized equipment room
A recent Gartner report revealed that network equipment costs in North America have increased only slightly over the past decade, while total network power consumption has surged. By 2009, power costs will exceed equipment investment by 100%. The main culprit is a network’s heat dissipation system, which broadly consumes the same amount of power as all other network equipment combined.
Legacy equipment, including axial flow fans and civilian air conditioning, are high noise polluters and fail to guarantee the optimal operation of core network equipment. To solve these problems, Huawei has rolled out solutions that cover both the equipment and the equipment room in which the system is housed.
Equipment optimization, design, and technical measures include: the top-mounted fan design, heat dissipation distribution, fault cause and risk elimination; in addition with redundancy design, automatic speed control, and baffle utilization. The core network equipment indices satisfy the power-consumption specifications of both the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Network Equipment Building System (NEBS).
To realize optimized heat dissipation via enhanced equipment, the central equipment room must be restructured. Thermal simulations show that layout design changes of air conditioners and windpipes can decrease the temperature by 3-5°C. Compared with the top-down model, the bottom-up wind supply model alone decreases power consumption by 23%. Doing so without even upgrading the equipment produces dramatic results. Overall, Huawei’s integrated design reduces power consumption by 29% in the core equipment room.
Lean manufacture
By June 2008, Huawei’s core network equipment has been serving 700 million people globally. The large-scale manufacture of the related equipment has involved huge amounts of raw materials. Moreover, mining, processing, and transportation are lengthy, while power-consuming processes emit high level of carbon.
Enhancing manufacturing techniques can lead to significant reductions in raw materials’ usage, power consumption, and carbon emissions. Huawei has employed new mechanical technologies to improve core network equipment manufacture, including boards, panels, shelves, and cabinets. As a result, Huawei reduced the average weight of each rack by 15%, and 30 kg less steel is needed for each rack.
Future-proof software
The rapid evolution of software technology is increasingly contributing to reductions in energy use. From network transformation to CPU frequency adjustment, Huawei’s software significantly lowers power-related CAPEX and OPEX for operators.
Communications networks have transformed at a much faster rate than the infrastructure of other industries. Frequent network transformation often discards legacy equipment and increases resource consumption on a massive scale. Huawei software has helped numerous operators upgrade existing equipment software, which enables transformation to a next generation network using the same equipment. Resource reuse and power saving via upgraded equipment are thus accomplished.
Network loads change enormously between peak and idle hours. Huawei software automatically adjusts the main frequency of equipment to suit traffic levels. Processing capacity is lowered during idle time, reducing power use by 10%.
Fulfilling green promises
The IT and communications industries have witnessed cont inuous research in i t ia t ives and promotions for energy saving standards. In 2006, the European Commission approved the Code of Conduct on Energy Consumption of Broadband Equipment for application in the communications industry. In September 2007, ETSI EE (Environmental Engineering) formally released a new version of ETSI TS 102 533, Energy Consumption in Broadband Telecommunication Network Equipment. In 2007, NEBS planned the development and release of energy saving standards in its annual conference.
To date, Huawei provides core network equipment that decreases the weight of a single cabinet by 15% and lowers power consumption by 14.6% per user, while the equipment runs normally in a 25°C environment. Huawei’s green core network is being deployed in more and more networks, as customers realize its value. It satisfies standards, reduces energy consumption, and curtails OPEX and CAPEX for operators.
By 2010, Huawei hopes to supply core network equipment that saves at least 50% energy per user and runs normally in a 30°C environment. On the Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN), the packet core network equipment is expected to save 81% energy per user. The explosive growth of mobile Internet will lead to massive increases in future power consumption. Huawei is a future-oriented company dedicated to continued environmental protection and thus the healthy development of the communications industry.
Constructing a green core network
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survey by Cel lular reveals t h a t 60% o f t h e d emand for communication service derives from homes and small-
and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Moreover, the arrival of 3G networks and burgeoning technologies such as HSPA and LTE are fueling an immense appetite for mobile data services, presenting a new challenge for operators.
Challenges of indoor network coverage
Blooming demand opens the market, but it also raises higher network
ABy Zhao Yanzhuo
Tackle the indoor coverage challenges
demands are higher, which in turn directs operators’ service innovation strategies. Video calls and conferencing, IPTV, and multimedia downloading provide examples of new services that can help operators rapidly attract subscribers, but only if their individual bandwidth be sufficiently met. Tariff as well as quality forms the primary factor in attracting and retaining subscribers. Constructing a network for home and SME subscribers that is high in bandwidth, low cost, and provides continuous indoor coverage is a prerequisite of market success.
Fourthly, an operator can pass low CAPEX and OPEX on to customers via the reduced tariffs that underpin of competitive ability. This forces network
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construction standards in several ways. Firstly, the basic precondition of achieving customer satisfaction is continuous coverage provision. In the home/SME context, this involves the coverage expansion of 2G/3G networks. Therefore, switchover and continuous coverage of macro networks must be realized.
Secondly, environmental issues are increasingly pervasive in the telecom industry’s development. For example, people are more sensitive about radiation at home and at work. The high coverage/high power model is untenable, and must be succeeded by low power technologies that ease environmental and health concerns.
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Tackle the indoor coverage challenges
construct ion to be ef f ic ient , rapid, and economical. However, in practice, difficulties exist and delays inevitably occur due to the cumulative complexity of site evaluation and selection, network planning, equipment installation, and optimization.
Moreover, a network construction project must be flexible enough to adapt to future trends and technologies. Today’s upgrade cycle is ever shorter, and networks have to seamlessly absorb nascent technologies and smoothly evolve in a way that anticipates market demands and enhances end-use quality. If an operator fails in this regard, its market share will dwindle as subscribers seek out alternatives.
uBro: a complete solution
Operators thus require a hol is t ic solution to meet home and SME indoor network coverage . To achieve th i s , Huawei’s uBro (UMTS Broadband) solution introduces the Femtocell BTS—a UMTS Acces s Point (UAP) product . uBro supplies UMTS to user equipment (UE) subscribers by connecting the UAP to the UAP access gateway (AG) via an ADSL modem on the IP network core. The AG then connects to the current UMTS core network through the standard Iu interface to establish network coverage for a single home or SME.
Green coverage
Locating the UAP indoors optimizes coverage with low transmit power (Home: UAP20mW; SME: UAP100mW) since the solution avoids signal attenuation generated by walls. The UAP incorporates automatic power control to adjust transmit power when a user is idle. When the user is connected, the UAP adjusts the signal strength to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with minimized transmit power. This saves power, extends cell phone standby time, and meets environmental protection requirements.
The UAP utilizes the standard 3G UMTS air interface to connect a 3G mob i l e phone to an in t e r i o r UAP and exterior 2G/3G macro-network.
Continuous coverage is achieved through switchover and reselection and thus, conveniently realizing the use of a single cell phone, number, address book, and account.
Rich service experiences
u B r o e n a b l e s e x t r e m e l y r a p i d b r o a d b a n d s e r v i c e s t h r o u g h D S L bandwidth and HSPA throughput with downlink and uplink peak rates of 7.2Mbps and 1.44Mbps respectively.
For home users, uBro realizes FMC and provides a digitalized home entertainment system that integrates a multiple services inc luding IPTV, downloading , the Internet, and multi-platform file sharing.
The uBro can benefit SME users with lower prices and increased commercial services, enabling functions such as remote video conferencing, high-speed fixed and mobile broadband access, and file sharing. In this sense, the uBro can help transform SMEs into mobilized and digitalized entities.
Networking at ease
Huawei’s uBro brings unparalleled simplicity, speed, and convenience to network deployment via a multitude of advantages that reduce CAPEX by 50% and OPEX by a staggering 90%. The UAP is small and light enough to be wall or desktop mounted, thus easing BTS site location burdens; its plug-and-play feature eliminates the need for specialized deployment engineers as the system automatically performs network planning and optimization. In addition, the uBro’s air interface and IP clock synchronization mechanisms are rapid and precise, and the latter allows network deployment in places lacking 3G macro networks.
The solution’s authentication function controls UE to UAP access and obviates unauthorized UAP access, while its automatic self-discovery and binding features support the UAP nomadic and lock functions. Maintenance on the UAP is s imple and inexpensive thanks to its automatic data configuration and version upgrade capabilities. The UAP cell provides users with a low cost, high-quality call platform that unburdens the macro-network.
The enormous CAPEX savings are
achieved in infrastructure, site location, site acquisition, and installation. OPEX becomes negligible thanks to massive savings in rent, transmission lines, labor, power supply, and O&M.
Seamless evolution
uBro adopts mainstream, standardized architecture to ensure seamless, future evolution potential and as such:
Complies with 3GPP Release 6 and • is forward compatible with Release 99/4/5;Employs the standard WDCMA • interface as the UE/UAP interface;Enables access for all standard 3G • terminals;Adopts the Iu CS/PS as the AG/mobile • core network interface;Employs the enhanced lu interface as • the UAP/network exit interface;Facilitates All-IP flat architecture for the • SAE/LTE NGNs.Not only is the solution designed with
the future in mind, but also terminals can easily access the existing mobile core network. When coupled with the macro-network, the system constitutes a unified broadband mobile platform that realizes seamless connectivity in terms of coverage and service provision.
Femtocell: an overview
The Femto Forum is a non-profit organization established to advance the development and adoption of Femtocell products . Femtocel l l i teral ly means mi l l imic ro mic ro-ce l l . The Forum comprises 70 organizations including operators and equipment manufacturers. As a member, Huawei actively promotes Femtocell’s development, as evidenced by its end-to-end uBro products.
Huawei is currently constructing several commercial trial networks in Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific in partnership with numerous operators, including Vodafone, Telecom Italia, T-Mobile, and Orange. The solution is increasingly accepted by operators, and sits ready to bring fast mobile broadband speeds for home and SME subscribers.
Editor: Xu Ping [email protected]
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Building eco-friendly bearer network
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By Liu Runing
include: 1) increasing the cooling and ventilation efficiency of equipment rooms and outdoor cabinets; 2) enhancing the eff iciency of power supply equipment, including generators; 3) utilizing new energy sources for remote sites; 4) reducing wood consumption in packaging and transportation; 5) minimizing toxic waste in the manufacture and reclamation stages, and; 7) reducing CO2 emission in office operations.
The green bearer networkThe bearer network normally contains large and
costly core routing equipment and optical backbone equipment, a single piece of which consumes several kilowatts of electricity. To improve this, Huawei has succeeded in innovating network design, components, and equipment to conserve energy and
Ongoing endeavors
n v i r o n m e n t a l p r o t e c t i o n i s n ow a fundamental feature of government policy and corporate culture. Operators are no exception, having realized that eco-friendly
measures achieve a number of benefits including OPEX reductions, sharpened competitiveness, and the fulfillment of social responsibility. Key green measures in the telecom field focus on saving energy and minimizing pollution. In order to help operators achieve these goals, Huawei assigned special research teams to identify ways to reduce pollution, conserve energy, and optimize energy efficiency.
Huawei’s endeavors have been focusing an end-to-end solution that saves resources across all the supply chain stages: design, manufacture, transportation, operation, and reuse. Huawei’s achievements to date
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Building eco-friendly bearer network
space, and curtail bearer network TCO.
Network optimization
At the network level, Huawei has improved network efficiency to further reduce TCO. Di rec t and e f f e c t i ve g reen measure s inc lude s impl i f i ed network design via flexible equipment configurations and the introduction of advanced network planning tools. Site numbers, equipment, and ports can all be reduced, while service quantity and QoS remain the same. Huawei has developed two major technologies to help operators build an eco-friendly bearer network:
Back-to-back Quidway NE5000E core cluster routers: Router cluster sy s tems consume huge amounts o f power and space, and high capacity core routers are generally used in the multi-frame cluster mode. Current core routers generally work in the 1+2 mode only, and require a central switching frame to connect two ordinary core routers. The patented Huawei NE5000E works not only in the 1+2 cluster mode, but can also smoothly evolve into back-to-back 2-frame clustering.
Back-to-back clustering negates the need for a central switching frame, which conserves energy and minimizes pollution. Test data shows that this mode saves 30% in power and over 33% in materials and space. The NE5000E, moreover, can provide 40Gbit/s line interfaces, and its future-oriented design delivers the capacity to accommodate multiple frames.
H i g h c a p a c i t y O p t i X O T N equipment: The OptiX OSN 6800 and 8800 integrate DWDM to achieve optical grooming and SDH grooming and protection. With an adjustable grooming capacity that can reach 1.28Tbit/s on each subrack, the highly integrated OptiX OSN 8800 replaces the legacy networking mode to reduce ports and ODFs, increases energy efficiency by over 30%, and reduces space usage by more than 40%.
Huawei locates OptiX OTN equipment to carry 10Gbit/s 40-wavelength WDM systems in four directions. Just 1400W of power and three subracks are required to add and drop 20 wavelengths and let through 17. Previously, six subracks and
2,900W of power were required to carry the same services. Moreover, the OptiX OSN 3800, 6800 and 8800 product series use universal, multi-purpose boards. Thus, operators need to buy fewer boards, and each can be reused after upgrading or optimizing a network.
The long-haul WDM equipment uses SuperWDM modulation technology, which does not require a regenerator within 5,000km. This reduces the power consumption of each site’s regenerator, and also decreases the need for equipment room investment and thus TCO. The OTN grooming helps deploy an ASON at the optical layer, which replaces a r ing network with a mesh network, increases f i r s t -pass y ie ld (FPY) v ia intelligent routing, and enhances service protection/restoration flexibility. Fewer nodes and ports are necessary, and less bandwidth is utilized, which improves bearer network efficiency. Depending on network topology, the ASON can increase bandwidth utilization by over 10%.
The flexible combination of OTN/λ switching and GMPLS grooming can help a core bearer router bypass services at the optical layer, which increases FPY. It also saves the core router from assigning costly switching resources and ports to let a service through, while optimizing power consumption and reducing TCO.
High integration equipment
Higher integration causes equipment to use less e lectr ic i ty and space. In the NE5000E and Optix OSN 8800, mult ip le subrack s lot s and f lex ib le board configurations s implify node configurations and minimize redundancy. T h e i r c o m p a t i b l e p ro d u c t d e s i g n necessitates fewer board types and less spare parts. TCO and eco-friendly goals are all realized.
Eco-friendly components
Huawei’s accumulated experience has culminated in a series of standard-compliant, environmentally sustainable products. These include:
High-integration ASIC chips: Most are based on a 90 nm or 65 nm technique, and some are based on 45 nm.
Innovative PID technology: This can greatly increase OTU integration and decrease OTU power consumption by over 40%. In 2009, this technology will be applied to the OSN8800/6800.
Advanced ventilation technology: Equipment can continue to work at between 30°C to 35°C, reducing the need for air conditioners.
Intelligent fan control: Equipment can precisely adjust fans’ energy consumption based on temperature. This is significant given that fans account for 10% of total power consumption.
Reduced voltage types: The ultra-efficient Huawei DC/DC power module increases power conversion efficiency by between 85% and 90%.
Built-in temperature control chip: The chip intelligently monitors power consumption and manages related software configurations with the help of control technologies such as CPU adjustment and automatic idle port shutdown.
Only measures that effectively reduce TCO and increase profits can achieve wide acceptance and opportunities for further development. By using cutting-edge technologies and parts, Huawei continues to increase network transport and energy efficiency and strives to help operators build eco-friendly bearer networks.
Back-to-back clustering
negates the need for a
central switching frame,
which conserves energy and
minimizes pollution. Test data
shows that this mode saves
30% in power and over 33%
in materials and space. The
NE5000E, moreover, can
provide 40Gbit/s line interfaces,
and its future-oriented design
delivers the capacity to
accommodate multiple frames.
Editor: Pan Tao [email protected]
Huawei Communicate
DEC 2008 . ISSUE 45 50
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