PRESS RELEASE: Recently, China Telecom Xiamen and Huawei completed a pilot coverage project in an urban village called Xin’an, located in Haicang district — a county-level district of Xiamen in Southeast China — by adding MetaAAU and Easy Macro 3.0 macro-pole collaboration solution onto the existing 5G coverage. Field tests showed an average of 7 dB gain in 5G coverage, in addition to speed increases of five times for indoor users and three times for roadside users, while 366 GB of traffic is added on a daily basis and 5G traffic has increased by 91%. Given a 15% drop in 4G traffic load, this means a notable increase of 5G traffic ratio from 17% to 27% has occurred.

In urban villages, a number of people live in dense low-rise buildings interlaced by narrow roads, and this translates into a big problem for operators when finding resources to deploy macro sites. With heavy 4G and 5G traffic load and inadequate in-depth 5G coverage, operators cannot unleash the potential of suppressed data traffic demand. This is no exception to China Telecom Xiamen. Although this operator has brought 5G services to urban, suburban, and industrial areas as well as major towns and roads, it has found enormous difficulty providing its high-quality 5G experience to more than 30 urban villages located in the city, such as Qianpu, Hecuo, Huangcuo, Andou, and Xin’an.

In an attempt to address this issue, China Telecom Xiamen piloted macro-pole collaboration in the Xin’an village of the Haicang district. More specifically, three MetaAAU sites (green in the figure below) joined a nearby existing macro site so that Massive MIMO can be leveraged to increase 5G speeds and absorb 5G traffic. Pole sites (yellow in the figure below) were also added on demand to fill coverage holes and increase capacity for hotspot areas.

Pilot macro-pole site distribution in the Xin’an village

 

MetaAAU and Easy Macro 3.0 pilot sites in the Xin’an village

Tests were conducted in buildings and at major roads. For buildings, the in-depth coverage improved by 4–10 dB, averaging 7 dB, and the downlink speed increased fivefold to 750 Mbps on average. For major roads, coverage improved by 7 dB and the downlink speed increased from 204 Mbps to 594 Mbps on average. Meanwhile, average daily 5G traffic picked up by 91%, or 605 GB, at the three physical sites in the village, meaning the ratio of 5G traffic grew significantly from 17% to 27%, and 4G traffic decreased by 15%, or 239 GB. As such, the average daily traffic increased by 366 GB, or 16%, from 2250 GB to 2616 GB.

This project verified the effectiveness of Huawei’s latest Massive MIMO product, MetaAAU, in helping mobile operators provide better coverage, higher speeds, and greater capacity for 5G services, which is key to enhancing experience and unlocking the potential of data traffic in dense residential areas. As such, it will enable China Telecom Xiamen to provide ultimate 5G experience and build a positive 5G business cycle, while contributing to the revitalization of rural areas.