China Telecom Yunnan Deploy Huawei's Distributed MIMO for Ubiquitous Premium 5G Experiences

Driven by the "Set Sail" Yunnan Action Plan for the development of 5G applications from 2022 to 2024, China Telecom Yunnan has actively built high-quality 5G networks to support widespread 5G application across industries. From high-definition (HD) video and calling for connecting people to the Internet of Things (IoT) applications based on reduced capability (RedCap) technology, China Telecom Yunnan is at the forefront of network and service innovations.

Full-service development mandates top-line 5G experience anytime anywhere for all users. However, signals are often weak and tend to interfere with each other in areas where the coverage of base stations overlaps, which is a common source of service interruption. This prevents networks from delivering premium experiences at all times, posing a significant challenge for operators looking to bring high-quality 5G experiences anytime anywhere.

In this context, China Telecom Yunnan has been working with Huawei to deploy a holistic suite of innovative solutions to overcome the interference and ensure excellent experiences in overlapping areas. For example, China Telecom Yunnan introduced Huawei's new enhanced MIMO (eMIMO Pro) solution in April this year. This solution enables networks to negate the interference for users when they are close to the edge of network coverage. This way, a nearly 20% better experience can be delivered to these users, helping boost the perceived speed by about 16% at the network level. Recently, China Telecom Yunnan added Huawei's Distributed MIMO solution(a part of Huawei's CloudBeam solution) to its networks to further improve experience for edge users by around 30% over the baseline. The drive test (DT) results found a doubled experience performance in some use cases, making it possible to ensure consistent experiences for users close to coverage edges.

The pilot use of Distributed MIMO(a part of Huawei's CloudBeam solution) was implemented in an area located in Yuxi, Yunnan Province. A total number of 33 cells were involved, with an average overlapping ratio of around 25%. After Distributed MIMO is deployed, a joint transmission technology can be used for networks to improve data transmission, which means that a cell may use the resources of its neighboring cells to send data to its users. From the technological perspective, channel quality can be improved tangibly to allow higher MCS indexes and MIMO layers, to significantly improve user experience.

China Telecom Yunnan spoke highly of these innovative solutions developed by Huawei. "Following the adoption of eMIMO Pro in April this year to overcome interference and improve experiences for edge users, we introduced Distributed MIMO to use the interference as a leverage to better user experience. Moreover, this is a software-based way to maximize the gains of multi-antenna technology in providing ubiquitous HD experiences. We will continue to work with Huawei to implement more innovative and new technologies to ensure optimal experiences for all."