PRESS RELEASE: ZTE Corporation together with the Guangdong Branch of China Mobile, has verified dynamic AI-based energy saving in the autonomous SPN (Slicing Packet Network) in Shaoguan, Guangdong province.

The test results show that the SPN works stably in scenarios such as NM (Network Management) disconnection, board failure, board plugging in/out, active/standby switching, traffic burst and network protection. This technology can effectively reduce network power consumption by 15.28% on average while assuring service security. It has helped SPN pass the traffic stress tests of major events such as Dragon Boat Festival and 618 Shopping Festival, which fully proves the feasibility of the technology and accelerates the green transport network transformation.

In the 5G era, the demands for massive access and ultra-high bandwidth lead to a sharp increase in network device consumption and operation costs. According to the specialists, there are the following problems for transport network devices in energy efficiency: The consumption fails to change with the service load, so the devices are consuming energy all the time in full load. On one hand, the existing network traffic changes remarkably with time. When there is less network traffic, the device bandwidth utilization is low and much energy is wasted. On the other hand, network devices are actually deployed in different stages, so there are few users in the early stage. Some network links are in light load or even no load, which causes big waste. Therefore, it is imperative for operators to save energy for transport networks.

To settle the above problems, China Mobile and ZTE proposed the SPN energy-saving technology, develop new energy-saving solutions in autonomous networks, come up with three-level energy-saving solutions based on chips, NE devices and networks, and take pilot  in the existing network in Shaoguan in Guangdong province.

ZTE’s intelligent management and control system ZENIC ONE collects the network data of different scenarios (office buildings, business districts and tourist resorts) in real time, analyzes the changes between traffic and time, judges the features (tide effect or holidays) of service scenarios, predicts the long-term trend of network traffic based on the AI algorithms, generates traffic model, and uses traffic simulation to energy saving risk assessment. Finally, it selects and carries out the most suitable energy saving solution. When the network is idle or busy, it can dynamically and precisely adjust the status of the device, so as to intelligently achieve energy saving.

Since the transport network device is located at the key positions of the network, there are strict requirements for service transport SLA. The SPN dynamic AI-based energy saving technology supports KPI threshold adjustments. Energy saving rules are dynamically enforced to ensure secure network O&M by automatically exit in emergency.

In addition, this technology supports one-touch deployment, security and reliability, and effect visualization. Firstly, with this technology, the O&M staff can  allow one-touch start and shutdown of the energy saving function by upgrading software without changing the network devices. Secondly, the network can dynamically adjust the energy-saving model and policies based on big data analysis and AI algorithms, simulate the energy-saving status in the sandbox to predict the risks and problems, so as to guarantee network security in various scenarios. Finally, the network can monitor the energy saving status in real time, so that the energy saving results can be displayed more clearly. In this way multi-scenario reports can be produced by one click.

This pilot project is a verification in the existing network after the successful lab testing by late 2021. It is a typical case for green dtransport network transmission that facilitates China Mobile to achieve its “carbon peak and carbon neutrality” goal.

Moving forward, ZTE will further collaborate with China Mobile in deep innovation to continuously improve its network energy saving efficiency, and boost low-carbon and autonomous network construction.ZTE will be committed to building the SPN to be a new-generation integrated low-carbon service transport network, and establishing an intelligent “energy-saving” ecosystem to contribute to the energy-saving development.