PARTNER FEATURE: Industrial private network has become one of the hottest applications of 5G technology, as it enables the kinds of latency, reliability, security, and capacity that previous infrastructure could not provide. To better support 5G in industrial applications, ZTE proposed the Precise RAN solution. Its core idea is through properly applying the radio network functions and reasonable allocating radio resources, industrial private 5G network can precisely match the diversified service requirements from different application scenarios. While ensuring high service quality, it also maintains a high efficiency of radio resource utilization. In this way, Precise RAN solution enables private 5G network with the necessary commercial competitiveness.

Private 5G networks help industry customers to enable a lot of new use cases which will leverage industry automation and accelerate digital transformation. Though it is desirable for many industries, but the ordinary solutions available on the market can hold enterprise users back, especially medium- and small-sized ones (SME), due to their concerns about economic feasibility and management convenience. They require a private 5G network solution with lightweight deployment cost, fast service commissioning and adaptive SLA guaranteed. This is why ZTE NodeEngine solution was launched – the industry’s unique base station with built-in computing engine, featuring private network capability with just one additional board, thereby providing a cost-effective private 5G network solution. NodeEngine product is ZTE’s innovative practice of Precise RAN solution for SME category. It has enabled a greater number of SMEs and organizations from different industries to benefit from 5G technology.

NodeEngine solution is developed on top of ZTE IT BBU platform which features all-RATs large capacity process. With just one additional board into BBU cabinet, a traditional BBU will be activated as the wireless brain of 5G industrial private network, providing local traffic offloading, local service identification, adaptive scheduling orchestration, visualized operation & maintenance, and other value-added services such as positioning, inter-connectivity between campus terminals.

Compared with other private network solutions, such as edge UPF, slice based virtual private network, or dedicated physical RAN plus miniaturized 5GC, NodeEngine solution is especially desirable for SMEs. Following is a list of capabilities and advantages provided by NodeEngine solution:

  • Simple deployment: NodeEngine deployment is based on operator’s public network. Just insert one board into existing BBU cabinet, no engineering survey or reconstruction, and no requirement of inter-operability between NodeEngine and core network, so to save tremendous time and efforts for IoT.
  • Short lead time: With one board, one fiber, two IP address, NodeEngine service can be rapidly turned on within one hour.
  • Precise SLA (Service level agreement) guarantee: With the capability of computing, storage and application acceleration, NodeEngine can satisfy the requirements of different applications through accurate QoS (Quality of Service) guarantee. Taking transmission of video streaming as an example, end-to-end video latency can be minimized to less than 100ms, meaning a latency reduction of around 80% with the NodeEngine’s video acceleration service.
  • Self-operation and self-maintenance: After being authorized by operators, enterprises can manage the private network themselves. Self-service includes real-time monitoring of local applications and the configuration of network QoS parameters. Through the self-service portal, enterprises can manage the experience of key applications in the campus.

Since the launch of NodeEngine solution in November 2020, ZTE have already incubated successful deployment across several commercial cases in China. The application scenarios covered a wide range of sectors including smart manufacturing, community security, smart mining and smart hospital. In addition, ZTE is actively negotiating with businesses in a range of industries, including steel factories, ports and stadiums, to expand the 5G usage.

One of these examples is the smart manufacture project with Xin Feng Ming Group in Zhejiang. ZTE NodeEngine solution and 5G Standalone network provides customer with the private network in the factory and enables local applications. Using ZTE technology, they have successfully deployed automated guided vehicle (AGV), which is one of the typical applications for the transportation of goods indoors, and visual inspection to improve the efficiency and accuracy rate of chemical fiber inspection. Throughout the whole process, the deployment was simple within only one hour. In addition, the application can be transmitted over the private 5G network quickly and they can subscribe to guaranteed QoS for different applications according to their needs through the self-service portal.

With NodeEngine solution, mobile edge computing power has never been so smoothly integrated into the current 5G networks. It effectively reduce the deployment and operation cost of 5G private networks. We believe NodeEngine will be a powerful tool in the digital transformation of vertical industry, and ZTE will continue to work with operators and vertical customers to accelerate digital transformation and build a global digital ecosystem.