Huawei Won the Outstanding Contribution Award in the“100-Day VoLTE Battle” Summary Meeting Held by China Mobile

[Shenzhen, China, July 19, 2016] At the "100-Day VoLTE Battle" summary meeting held by China Mobile on July 15, Huawei was at the top of China Mobile's overall vendor rankings and was given the Outstanding Contribution Award. To date, Huawei has helped deploy a commercial (or trial) VoLTE network, servicing more than 20 million subscribers in 25 provinces in China.

During the battle, Huawei quickly worked out a joint VoLTE deployment scheme, established a technical team of top specialists, and collaborated with China Mobile to complete 15 rounds of NE data configuration checks, 35,000 rounds of parameter adjustments, and added 40,000 pairs of neighbor cells in 167 cities or municipalities.

What's more, Huawei proposed the innovative "4-2-1" VoLTE experience improvement plan, formulated a 3-tier VoLTE KPI system to enable the VoLTE KPIs in each province to meet China Mobile's expectation. Huawei fully supported VoLTE number allocation and rapid subscriber growth in Shanghai, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hunan, Sichuan, Beijing, and Henan. Huawei has served more than 1 million VoLTE subscribers in each province and been highly praised by customers.

 The process of achieving the commercial use of China Mobile VoLTE network is complex, challenging, and significant

The VoLTE network of China Mobile is the world's largest one. China Mobile is working to implement the voice service evolution from 2G/3G networks to 4G networks covering the largest number of subscribers. In addition, the VoLTE network of China Mobile is also the most complex and challenging VoLTE construction project in history. The complexity of the VoLTE construction project lies in not only the technologies, but also the involved ten main network domains, large number of NEs, and various interfaces. The commercial use of the VoLTE project plays a key role in accelerating the development of networks, terminals, and standards.

Networks: China Mobile has built the world's largest VoLTE network, which demonstrates the successful commercial use of the VoLTE network with the largest network construction scale and the largest number of users. Currently, all 29 provinces with Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployed have put the VoLTE network into commercial use. The phase-one network design specifications allow tens of millions of users to be served.

Terminals: China Mobile has provided a wide range of VoLTE terminals, including high, medium, and low-end VoLTE terminals. In particular, China Mobile's A and N-series mobile phones also support the VoLTE network, which facilitates the popularity of VoLTE services. China Mobile can provide optimal VoLTE terminals in the world.

Standards: Since the establishment of the GTI organization, China Mobile has always been leading and promoting TD-LTE globalization and has made remarkable achievements. China Mobile released the VoLTE technology white paper in time, and launched out low-cost VoLTE chip solutions jointly with chip manufacturers. All these activities have injected strong impetus into the VoLTE development.

China Mobile and Huawei move forward and grow together

Huawei has provided full support for the development of the VoLTE network in terms of core networks, wireless networks, and VoLTE terminals and made multiple breakthroughs. For example, it connected the first VoLTE call in April 2014 and put the VoLTE network into commercial use for the first time in Hangzhou in August 2015. What's more, Huawei's VoLTE terminals also facilitate the spread of the VoLTE network. Huawei Mate 7 is the first type of China Mobile VoLTE terminals that have been put into the market for trial-commercial and commercial use. At present, a total of 7 types of well-sold Huawei mobile phones support large-scale commercial use of the VoLTE network, including the latest flagship mobiles P9 and P8 Plus.

Huawei integration service team, a technical team with a total of more than 2200 members engaged, coordinates different resources to create high-quality VoLTE networks. The integrated delivery ensures highly efficient commercial use of VoLTE networks. Since the first commercial use of VoLTE networks in Hangzhou in August 2015, Huawei proactively assisted 24 provinces in completing the trial-commercial and commercial use of VoLTE networks. Since February this year, the number of VoLTE account subscribers has increased by about 50 times, with the total number of VoLTE users reaching more than ten million. 

Huawei will continue to help China Mobile with innovation and industry transformation

China Mobile and Huawei are committed to building China Mobile's VoLTE project into the world's largest one with optimal user experience and providing first-rank network services for all users.

Huawei cloud core network will open up carrier-class video communication capabilities to third-party partners and vertical industries through capability openness based on China Mobile's strong network communication capability, and integrate industry resources to provide better services and applications for users. For example, by implementing the interworking between VoLTE terminals and the IP cameras or television sets, video services can be applied in wider areas. Huawei will explore the enterprise communications blue ocean and vigorously develop IoT with industry partners to help China Mobile to reach the strategic objective of 5 billion IoT connections by 2020.

-The End-

About Huawei

Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider. Our aim is to enrich life and improve efficiency through a better connected world, acting as a responsible corporate citizen, innovative enabler for the information society, and collaborative contributor to the industry. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established an end-to-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. Huawei’s 170,000 employees worldwide are committed to creating maximum value for telecom operators, enterprises and consumers. Our innovative ICT solutions, products and services are used in more than 170 countries and regions, serving over one-third of the world’s population. Founded in 1987, Huawei is a private company fully owned by its employees.

Huawei Wins Two Prizes at 5G World Summit and CloudEdge Paves the Way to 5G Core Network

Huawei Technologies won two awards at the most recent 5G World Summit, which ended June 30th. The first award was for "Most Notable Partnership Between an Operator and Solutions Provider for 5G Trials and Development," shared with Deutsche Telekom; the second was for "Biggest Contribution to 5G Research & Development." At the Summit last year, Huawei earned Best NFV Innovation of the Year with CloudEdge for its innovations in 5G core network evolution and cloud-based core network commercialization.

These two international awards show that the 5G industry has widely recognized Huawei's contribution of innovative ideas and solutions to the 5G network, especially with regard to the 5G core network evolution, 5G core network slicing, and commercial innovation that these technologies have brought about. One of the key problems for 5G, as we approach its advent, is the question of how to migrate the current core network to the 5G network. The answer will require a joint effort from the entire industry, but the Huawei CloudEdge solution will help smooth the way to a 5G core network.

CloudEdge Lays a Cloud-based Foundation for 5G Evolution

To meet the requirements for a connected world in the 5G era, future core networks must first provide carrier-grade reliability and high-performance. CloudEdge enables resource sharing among NEs through a cloud-based architecture. In addition, it supports lossless service switches across data centers and uses software and hardware acceleration technologies to enhance user-plane performance on COTS servers. In 2016, CloudEdge ranked first in the point-of-contact (PoC) test organized by Telefonica.

CloudEdge Provides an Open Platform for 5G Innovation

The boundaries between telecommunications and its vertical areas are fading and the merging of industries is deepening. Networks must be open enough to support cross-industry innovation. CloudEdge is not just a product that moves traditional EPC to the cloud, but rather a cutting-edge innovation platform. CloudMSE, one of the components, is a capability aggregation platform that can quickly integrate third-party applications. A third-party vendor only needs to continuously optimize their applications, while CloudMSE is responsible for scheduling resources, managing capacity, and distributing traffic, which will shorten the time to market. Another component, CloudUIC, is an open platform for network capabilities that makes information and capacity available to third parties over mobile networks, which will facilitate the development of innovative services.

Mobile Network Edge Cloud Solution of CloudEdge Ensures Optimal Service Experiences

Services such as mobile HD video and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) are still growing globally, and meeting the low-latency, high-bandwidth requirements is an ever-present challenge for contemporary networks. CloudEdge is able to provide optimal experiences for emerging services such as these, first by separating the control plane from the user plane with the introduction of NFV, SDN, and MEC technologies. Additionally, the GW-U on the user plane integrates a variety of applications such as CDN and Cache and is deployed much closer to user to meet the high requirements of 5G services, such as self-driving automobiles and remote surgery.

Huawei cloud core network plays a leading role in comprehensive network cloudification. Huawei offers to build 70 commercial cloud networks, which makes it a leader in 5G evolution. In addition, Huawei has strategically cooperated with Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, and many other industry-leading carriers in 5G core network innovation. Huawei will continue to work with more partners to build 5G ecosystems and promote 5G development. With its help, carriers can build their core competitiveness in the 5G network evolution.

Highlights from Key Speeches on Core Network Evolution at Huawei User Group Meeting 2016

On the second day of the 2016 Huawei User Group Meeting, industry leaders shared their views with attendees from all over the world. With his opening speech on core network evolution at the Mindshare Forum, Long Jiping, R&D president of Huawei Cloud Core Network Product Line, welcomed all the guests. Seven representatives from KPN, EE, Guangdong Telecom, SKY, Telkom, XL, and Telefonica shared their future roadmaps and the opportunities and challenges in their business operations.

EE: Driving Towards Virtualization and 5G

Scott Berry, head of Core Network (Design & Planning) at EE presented the topic "EE Drives Towards Virtualization and 5G." He said that EE has the largest number of 4G subscribers in Europe and has experienced a 100-fold increase in traffic over the past ten years. Facing digital transformation, EE is actively exploring new fields such as ESN, NB-IoT, NFV, and 5G, aiming to build a more efficient and value-added network. Shi Jilin, president of Huawei Packet Core Network Product Line, commented, "Huawei and EE have collaborated in the MBB field for over ten years. In the future, we will invest more in service innovation, cloud-based telecom network, and 5G to help EE implement strategic transformation."

Scott Berry, head of Core Network (Design & Planning) of EE, giving a speech "EE Drives Towards Virtualization and 5G"

Holland KPN: Pursuing Customer-centric Innovation

Perry Jackson, director of KPN Technology Labs, talked about challenges faced by the telecom industry. He pointed out that operators lack differentiated and attractive services, as well as rapid service innovations, although they still have a high network coverage ratio. Their revenues are continuing to decline due to OTT. "We have to change our innovation mode from network-centric to customer-centric." said Jackson. At present, KPN has a three-pronged strategy: investing in start-ups to support innovation, funding technical departments to develop disruptive technologies and innovative business models in network services, and collaborating with partners like Huawei to explore new technologies. Each concept or technology developed by KPN aims to achieve five objectives: generate new revenues, improve user experience, reduce costs, strengthen KPN's image as a technical leader, and be aligned with KPN's development strategy.

 Perry Jackson, director of KPN Technology Labs, talking about customer-centric innovation

EE: Packet Core Network Architecture Evolution

Martin Stuart, senior manager of EE, opened his speech by reflecting on the successful collaboration between EE and Huawei, "This March, EE and Huawei celebrated their ten years collaboration with champagne." He then shared EE's network isolation strategy for ensuring network robustness and user experience during traffic surges and signaling storms. He also introduced the design concepts of smooth evolution to NFV, including gateway decentralization, pooling capacity redundancy, and hybrid networking.

Martin Stuart, senior manager of EE, introducing packet core network architecture evolution

Guangdong Telecom: Embracing Enterprise Cloud Communications

Guangdong Telecom leads the development of government and enterprise services in China Telecom Group. However, it still encounters challenges such as limited service profile and low-value broadband in an all-optical fiber network. Chang Wenzhuo, vice general manager of the Marketing Department at Guangdong Telecom, shared Guangdong Telecom's strategy and opportunities in the enterprise market. He also spoke about the transformation of Guangdong Telecom from a communications service provider to a communications + cloud infrastructure service provider.

Guangdong Telecom has adopted the "one fiber, multiple functions" strategy to derive value from fiber broadband. Guangdong Telecom has created multiple VLANs on a fiber, with each VLAN bearing different services at network bandwidths and featuring different charging modes. In addition, Guangdong Telecom worked together with Huawei Cloud IMS Core to build a unified cloud platform, which provides enterprises with one-stop cloud communications services such as smart center, call center, and video conferencing. Based on APIs and SDKs provided by Huawei, Guangdong Telecom developed a unified conference control platform as well as a video terminal and enterprise self-management platform, which is a remarkable ICT innovation. In the future, Guangdong Telecom plans to implement integrated video services including cloud PBX, cloud conferencing, iVPN, and 4G.

Chang Wenzhuo, vice general manager of the Marketing Department of Guangdong Telecom, talking about enterprise communications service

Telefonica: Providing Smart Home Technology to Millions of Families in Latin America Homes

José Manuel Nistal, global head of the Marketing Department (Digital Home) at Telefonica, said, "Telefonica aims to build a ubiquitous communication network. IoT is an inevitable trend and a brilliant opportunity to develop Smart Home services. We are taking Smart Home to Latin America in 2016. The family users control the home devices via the smartphone. The Smart Home market worldwide will grow to 245 million homes by 2020. Huawei is a strategic partner with wide presence and strong capabilities in the Latin America market. Huawei's IoT platform offers a wide range of functionalities while ensuring the highest quality standard including open, scalable, total flexibility and highest levels of security and robustness. Huawei is helping Telefonica build the Smart Home ecosystem."

José Manuel Nistal, global head of the Marketing Department (Digital Home) of Telefonica, introducing Smart Home

South Africa Telkom: Cloud-based IMS Driving FMC

Albert Van Schalkwyk, manager of NW Transform&Planning of South Africa Telkom spoke about legacy PSTN disadvantages, such as high complexity, high maintenance costs, and slow growth in mobile subscribers. He opined that operators can build a cloud-based platform to implement network evolution and service transformation. The idea is to develop FMC using a cloud-based IMS network. The first step is to reconstruct fixed networks. By implementing an IP-based fixed voice service, operators can develop cloud-based VoLTE and VoWiFi, enhancing basic mobile communication experience from voice to dual HD. The second step is to develop FMC services. By streamlining the boundary between fixed and mobile services, operators can provide a convergent user experience. The third step is to implement ICT convergence. Speaking of VoLTE and VoWiFi, Albert emphasized three key factors for a successful go-to-market deployment – easy to deploy, easy to operate and maintain, and beyond the voice. Besides voice services, operators should develop video and enterprise communications services to expand their markets and derive value through capability exposure.

Albert Van Schalkwyk, manager of NW Transform&Planning of South Africa Telkom, explaining how to implement network evolution

Indonesia XL: Embracing Digital Transformation

Haris Chandra, general manager in charge of service operation management at Indonesia XL, shared XL's strategy for digital transformation. XL plans to implement the NFV technology to improve network, customer, and internal organization agility and speed up service provisioning. Haris then reviewed the company's collaboration with Huawei Packet Core Network and introduced three key points for XL to build the first NFV commercial network with 100 GB level traffic in the Asia Pacific. The first point is primary system integration, which requires XL to collaborate with technologically advanced vendors in the telecom industry. The second point is network reliability, that is, the NFV network must inherit the high reliability of the telecom network. The last point is network performance, with emphasis on commercial deployment of a network with a massive subscriber base.

Haris Chandra, general manager in charge of service operation management at Indonesia XL, talking about digital transformation

Britain SKY: Zero Service Interruption for Three Consecutive Years

As one of the biggest fixed network operators in the U.K., SKY has the largest fixed IMS network in Europe, serving more than 3.2 million subscribers. Because of its large-scale network and huge subscriber base, SKY is required by the U.K. government to keep its service interruption time under 20 seconds, putting great pressure on its NOC department. Oliver Henry Russell, operations manager of SKY, explained how SKY had achieved zero service interruption for three consecutive years. With extremely stringent network stability requirements, SKY adopted a 1+1+1+1 backup mode, established an independent IMS lab, and completely tested all version functions and important operations like upgrade before going live. Facing challenges such as complex IMS network architecture, high requirements for operation and maintenance, and difficulties in fault location, SKY deployed an emergency processing platform and collaborated with Huawei frontline engineers and remote maintenance experts to conduct routine troubleshooting drills. All these actions helped SKY achieve zero service interruption for three consecutive years.

Oliver Henry Russell, operations manager of SKY, sharing their experience in zero service interruption

Huawei 5G Core Network Helps Deutsche Telekom Win an Award at 5G World Summit

At the recent 5G World Summit 2016, Huawei and Deutsche Telekom were jointly awarded Most Notable Partnership Between an Operator and Solutions Provider for 5G Trials and Development for their continuous innovations and close cooperation in the 5G field.

A key focus in the 5G era is the optimization of network architecture to meet diverse requirements for a variety of applications. Because the optimization and evolution of the 5G core network is critical, research in this area is of the utmost importance. As such, Huawei and Deutsche Telekom have been in continuous collaboration to help develop the 5G core network innovation. To showcase their joint efforts, the two parties performed an end-to-end network slice demonstration based on a 5G core network at the 2016 Mobile World Congress.

Which aspects of the Huawei 5G core network helped win favor with Deutsche Telekom and receive industry-wide recognition?

Innovative Comprehensive Cloud Transformation

At the Global Analyst Conference held in April this year, Huawei put forwarded three core features of Comprehensive Cloud Transformation, on which the Huawei 5G core network design draws:

l   Pooling all hardware resources, including network and IT devices. Pooling transforms the traditional chimney-type architecture in which a single application requires a piece of hardware, thereby maximizing resource sharing.

l   Fully distributed software architecture, a best practice from Internet companies. Full distribution is a basic condition for implementing large-scale systems. Only distributed systems can provide flexible capabilities and implement flexible troubleshooting and resource scheduling.

l   Automatic service deployment, resource scheduling, and troubleshooting, which do not require any manual intervention.

Key Industry-leading Technologies

During 5G core network construction and reconstruction, Huawei introduced key technologies such as NFV, SDN, Cloud, MEC, and SOA. The decoupling of software and hardware enables multiple logical networks to be established on the unified hardware infrastructure. The separation between user and control planes allows for flexible deployment of logical functions. Data-driven and open networks implement quick service provisioning and real-time closed-loop optimization. Modular network capabilities and atomic-level capability orchestration achieve automatic slicing for multiple services.

Clear and Open Evolution Path

5G core network evolution is carried out in two phases. In the first phase, NFV, SDN, and Cloud are introduced to decouple software from hardware at the network element (NE) level. This phase implements elastic resources and flexible services, laying a foundation for further NE decomposition and capability reconstruction. In the second phase, existing NEs are decomposed and their capacities are reconstructed. For example, the MME, P-GW, S-GW, IMS, and PCRF are decomposed into modules that provide authentication, control, service, and management. Atomic-level capability orchestration provides support for future service innovation and operation efficiency improvement.

Huawei, together with other leading operators, including Deutsche Telekom and China Mobile, has helmed strategic 5G core network innovations. Huawei will continue to cooperate with industry partners to create a 5G ecosystem and promote development of the 5G industry.