PRESS RELEASE: ZTE Corporation in partnership with China Telecom, today has released a 5G-Adavanced solution, Cluster DFS, at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona, Spain. This innovation will enable dynamic frame sharing on the basis of base station cluster to facilitate the coordinated development of B2B and B2C.

China Telecom has deployed the world’s largest 5G SA network with more than 1 million 5G base stations based on ran-sharing strategy. With the large-scale commercialization of 5G, China Telecom continues its 5G network innovation and enhancement for B2B, with the number of 5G customized networks hitting over 3000, and commercial projects nearly 9000 by the end of 2022. With the development of vertical applications, better performance of 5G network is required to support operations and digital transformation, which poses a huge challenge for operators..

To adapt to vertical application traffic dynamics on uplink and downlink, China Telecom and ZTE have introduced the innovative Cluster DFS, by which, base stations with same heavy uplink characteristics are intelligently formed as “cluster” to implement accurate adaptation between frame structure and services requirements. Consequently, a 5G network can synergize B2B and B2C services with optimal user experiences.

Huang Lilian, GM of Network Development and Sharing Department at China Telecom, said, “5G has become an important driving force of digital economy development. China Telecom is continuously exploring and promoting innovative technologies and solutions that combine the development of 5G high-quality networks and industrial applications.”

“Based on previous successful experience of Cluster DSS, China Telecom further extends ‘cluster-level’ radio resource management mechanism from ‘frequency domain’ to ‘time domain’, which provides more flexible radio resource strategy and promotes the development of fully-connected factories. The commercial trial of Lierda shows that Cluster DFS has increased the uplink throughput of B2B applications by 60~80% while ensuring stable B2C experiences, significantly improving network performance and efficiency, ” added Huang Lilian.

Bai Yanmin, Vice President of ZTE, said, “B2B and B2C coordinated development on one network requires more flexible and more intelligent resource management strategy, therefore, RAN intelligence is of great importance. ZTE uses RAN native-AI to enable adaptive radio resource adjustment, including spectrum, frame structure, power and beams. With four key features, specifically, intelligent traffic prediction, cluster self-generating, intra-cluster traffic shaping and inter-cluster coordination, the potential of commercial 5G networks can be fully unlocked to offer optimal experiences for both industrial applications and consumer users.”

Cluster DFS provides precise and on-demand user experiences for both consumers and enterprises based on AI capability, enabling network policy shift from “one-size-fit-all” to “context-aware” and coordinating the development of B2B and B2C on 5G commercial networks.

Moving forward, ZTE and China Telecom will continue working together to carry out innovative practices and facilitate the development of 5G-Advanced applications for a digital, intelligent and green future.