Partner Content - How China Broadnet Built Its 5G Core Network – And How It’s Approaching 5.5G Core Network

China Broadnet is China’s fourth-largest network operator and alone runs TV broadcast services. Perhaps most remarkable is how rapidly it has grown its mobile services: Since launching in just 2022, the operator has co-constructed – together with China Mobile – more than 600,000 700 MHz base stations and now shares more than 4 million 4G and 5G base stations to establish nationwide coverage.

Li Shuang, Deputy Director of Technology Department at China Broadnet, recently shared details of the company scaled up its network so fast in an interview with Light Reading contributor editor Greg McIvor at WinWin Live, where they were also joined by Jeffrey Wu, who’s President of Huawei Packet Core Network Domain.

The foundation of China Broadnet’s rapid network expansion is a 5GC toC and toB convergent one cloud architecture with a one centralized 5G core network. That core network is divided into two regions and includes four datacenters and 31 provincial user planes. China Broadnet spun up more than 5,000 physical servers to support cloud resource pools, which in turn enable faster, more frequent development and deployment.

“On this centralized network, we can develop B2B and B2C services quickly, and achieve high stability, simplified network construction, unified O&M, and fast service innovation,” Shuang said.

Leveraging Huawei’s 5GC convergent one cloud capabilities and expertise, China Broadnet completed network construction – covering tens of millions of users – within five months.

Huawei’s Wu explained how the 5G core network and converged one cloud architecture enables greater redundancy and resiliency, among other advantages. The network includes dual physical sites for redundancy and supports cross-city disaster recovery, while the network’s fault bypass function keeps services up-and-running even in extreme conditions. Meanwhile, the converged one cloud architecture enables automated upgrades and testing, and allows for new services to be rapidly replicated across locations.

For China Broadnet, those service rollouts impact both their consumer and business divisions. On the consumer side, Shuang pointed to 5G New Calling and NR Broadcasting as examples of emerging technologies enabled by its 5G core network.

“We built a 5G New Calling platform, aiming to transform from voice-centered operations to content- and service-centered operations, and bringing differentiated 5G featured services to users,” Shuang said.

They’re also testing 5G NR Broadcasting with an eye toward delivering dynamic unicast/multicast/broadcast 5G services for emerging multimedia use cases.

On the business side, China Broadnet is utilizing the wide coverage of its 700MHz spectrum to tailor services to specific industries such as manufacturing, transportation, public safety, and other sectors. Recent projects include the deployment of a 5G emergency communication platform in Jiangsu and Shanghai.

Looking ahead, China Broadnet is working with partners like Huawei on the next phase of its network development: 5.5G, or 5G-Advanced.

“We think 5.5G is a crucial phase for the development from 5G to 6G,” Shuang said. “In the future, the demand for the new services like AI and XR immersive experiences will soar. The business models will transform, and the connection boundaries will continue to be expanded.”

While it constructs its 5.5G core network, China Broadnet has already made several network upgrades, such as high-throughput UPF, which delivers 10 times higher capacity.

Both Shuang and Wu emphasized the role increasing automation and intelligence will play in 5.5 core networks – and in how operators will continue to transform their businesses en route to the 6G era.

“With the intelligence plane and network element native intelligence, Huawei 5.5G core realizes service intelligence, network intelligence, and O&M intelligence,” Wu said. “And network intelligence is the foundation for experience monetization and network quality improvement.”