PARTNER CONTENT: According to the World Bank, a 10% increase in broadband penetration boosts an average growth of 1.3% gross domestic product (GDP) and 3% in new job creation. National broadband services can reflect a country’s fundamental economic competitiveness to a certain extent.

According to World Happiness Report 2016 and Huawei GCI Whitepaper 2016, a 10% increase in the global connectivity index (GCI) will produce a 5% growth of human happiness index (HHI). An increasing number of governments consider broadband access the fourth utility after water, heating, and electricity facilities and define broadband access as a basic human right.

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As the digital economy thrives, family lives have manifested as a primary focus for the adoption of digital technologies. However, more than half of 1.9 billion global households do not enjoy broadband access. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) claims that 1.1 billion households worldwide cannot connect to the internet, among which 800 million are in emerging markets. The eventual aim is to connect 430 million households by 2020.

Two years ago, Huawei was keen to release wireless to the x (WTTx), a comprehensive wireless home broadband (HBB) solution. This solution allows additional households to quickly enjoy broadband access and has strengthened the involvement of digital applications as an integral and reliant component of our daily lives. WTTx features easy implementation, excellent cost efficiency, and has quickly gained huge popularity among global telecom operators as a preferred choice to provide broadband services for more than 30 million households worldwide.

Huawei’s WTTx is a wireless solution which involves the incorporation of 4G, 4.5G, and 5G technologies, aiming to deliver cost-effective fiber-like broadband access to unconnected households in emerging markets. By leveraging existing cellular networks and site architecture, WTTx resolves the last mile access issues encountered using traditional fixed-line broadband solutions in both densely populated urban centers (WTTx high capacity solution), and sparsely populated rural areas (WTTx ultra-wide coverage solution).

From the perspective of communication, users subscribe to broadband internet access by three methods: fixed broadband (FBB), wireless broadband (WBB) (WTTx is a Huawei WBB solution), and mobile broadband (MBB). What advantages or unique value does WTTx create compared with FBB?

FBB has stable performance, but the last mile coverage requires a large amount of civil engineering. In many countries, FBB deployment is costly and slow due to the acquisition of private land or other geographical constraints, or the high single-user cost limitations associated with further development. WTTx is an effective supplement to FBB in the following scenarios:

In the majority of developing countries, urban areas are densely populated. Private land and civil engineering produce high costs. From the market perspective, most households and small- and medium-sized enterprises are eager to use broadband access services, and the ARPU of FBB can reach dozens or hundreds of US dollars. This scenario is an ideally selected candidate suitable for WTTx deployment.

In developed countries, such as Germany and Australia, the wired broadband penetration rate is high. However, suburbs lack wired broadband networks due to feasibility and cost hindrances. As a result, governments encourage operators to provide WTTx in suburbs to promote universal access services.

WTTx displayed unique superiority over other implementations in these scenarios. Identical services are provided through flexible, fast, and cost-effective deployment, increasing the user base and paving the way for future FBB and service development.

WTTx features an abundance of cost advantages in typical new deployment scenarios where user density is smaller, users are more sparsely distributed, and civil engineering is challenging. The single-user cost in multi-carrier scenarios has superiority over single-carrier scenarios.

WTTx used to provide wireless broadband connectivity to unconnected households can be potentially achieved 75% cheaper and in 90% of the time compared to fixed-line deployments, delivering a return on investment (ROI) to operators within 2 years.

Huawei is focused on meeting the ITU’s Connect 2020 target of ensuring 50% of households in the developing world are able to access the internet by 2020.

On an international scale, Huawei has signed over 100 commercial WTTx agreements with telco and mobile operators. WTTx is currently live in over 30 countries serving more than 30 million households, and small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across APAC and Africa and developed areas such as Europe and North America.

Huawei recently released the wireless HBB solution WTTx 2.0 at the 2016 Global MBB Forum.

WTTx exudes great potential although having already achieved tremendous notable success. Huawei partners with operators to implement and conduct further research into WTTx, allowing for the classification of WTTx into WTTX 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 based on 4G and its evolution technologies 4.5G and 5G. WTTx 3.0 in the 5G era will provide HBB access rates higher than 10 Gbit/s.

Huawei provided a detailed explanation about WTTx 2.0 at the news conference. WTTx 2.0 features vast improvements from the dimensions of broadband capability, network convergence, O&M, and service provision, upgrading WTTx 1.0 to WTTx 2.0. Huawei considers these dimensions as four forces propelling WTTx 2.0.

Force 1: advanced broadband capability
WTTx 2.0 provides a diverse range of innovative solutions including massive MIMO, achieving a more than five-fold increase in spectral efficiency, a significant decrease in the cost-per-bit, and Gbps access rates. WTTx 2.0 helps operators deploy WTTx networks with lower E2E costs and higher rates for the provision of quality broadband services to additional households.

Force 2: seamless convergence
As for operators providing both MBB and WTTx services and those providing both FBB and WTTx services, WTTx 2.0 offers a seamless convergence solution. For example, diverse quality of service (QoS) solutions allow for resource sharing between MBB and WTTx services, achieving an optimal level of network experience. WTTx 2.0 provides a convergence billing system, which integrates WTTx and FBB service billing for operators who provide both services, achieving central service billing without network reconstruction.

Force 3: efficient O&M
Operators must implement a range of systematic operation approaches from number allocation and household CPE deployment to CPE maintenance for the development of a new user, requiring significant procedural efficiency improvements. The WTTx Map of WTTx 2.0 helps operators accurately and visibly allocate numbers. WTTx 2.0 adopts cables typically reserved for power supply or satellite TVs and uses these cables to supply power for outdoor CPEs and transmit signals from outdoor to indoor locations, resolving the last-meter challenge of household CPE installation. The CPE management system is then used to help operators centrally and remotely supervise CPEs.

Force 4: support for diverse services
WTTx 2.0 provides a diverse range of services, besides simple broadband access. For example, WTTx 2.0 supports IPTV services, facilitating the inheritance of the wired broadband service model. WTTx 2.0 also supports Smart Home, which indicates a transformation from the provision of digital to more smart home oriented services. CPEs can then be used to integrate V-Band broadband access for the expansion of indoor 4G coverage and deploy virtual private networks (VPNs) for small- and medium-sized enterprise network deployment.

4.5G networks have been widely deployed around the globe, while worldwide operators are dedicated to deploying 4.5G-based WTTx 2.0 networks, boosting revenue growth and competitiveness. The newly released WTTx 2.0 will help operators further expand the boundaries of HBB and unlock the latent growth potential of the market.