Focusing on Data Services, ZTE Promotes TD Indoor Solutions
Recently, ZTE revealed that the upcoming next-phase TD tests will place greater emphasis on data services, making indoor coverage one of the most critical core issues. In addition to micro base station and repeater solutions, ZTE has also launched an innovative "fiber-to-the-floor" indoor coverage solution.
From a technical perspective, TD-SCDMA does not use smart antennas indoors, which transforms the TD system from a code-resource-constrained outdoor system to an interference-constrained indoor system. As a result, multiple technologies deployed simultaneously for indoor coverage can cause mutual interference. ZTE believes that when building an indoor distribution system incorporating TD, whether it is a new deployment or an expansion, reducing interference has become the primary bottleneck in indoor coverage construction. In addition to better performance, lowering CAPEX and OPEX is also a key requirement for next-generation indoor coverage solutions.
From a practical application standpoint, research results from leading operators such as NTT indicate that approximately 70% of 3G voice service demand originates indoors, and approximately 90% of data applications originate indoors. Indoor coverage may become the decisive factor in the success or failure of 3G operations. Fast-growing 3G operators such as NTT and Hutchison Whampoa do not necessarily rely on their own 2G networks; instead, they focus primarily on coverage in hotspot areas, especially indoor coverage, and then gradually promote flagship services.
Traditional TD indoor coverage mainly relies on micro base stations and repeaters, but this approach has significant drawbacks: because the TD system uses TDD technology, it has stricter requirements for interference and latency. Micro base stations have weak traffic scheduling capabilities and poor cost-effectiveness, while repeaters introduce latency and interference, degrade network performance, and have weak network management capabilities.
In response, ZTE is focusing on promoting the "fiber-to-the-floor" solution, which separates the base station's baseband unit from the radio frequency (RF) unit. The RF unit can be flexibly placed anywhere indoors, while the baseband pool (BBU) is centrally deployed to enable baseband sharing. Fiber optic cables connect the baseband pool to the remote radio units (RRUs) distributed throughout the building. The "multi-channel" technology aggregates cells that were previously separated by walls and floors into the signal source through independent cabling, thereby avoiding the risk of carrier-to-interference ratio degradation on a single backbone line, optimizing system interference, and enhancing user experience.
This indoor coverage solution vigorously promoted by ZTE not only offers the advantages of centralized network capacity deployment, distributed wireless coverage, easy installation, and low cost, but also allows micro base stations and repeaters to continue leveraging their strengths, such as repeaters providing coverage gap filling or signal relay when additional capacity is not required. By combining the "fiber-to-the-floor" multi-channel indoor coverage technology with micro base stations and repeaters, ZTE can deliver a more comprehensive indoor coverage solution for users, particularly suitable for stadiums, business districts, and homes, and is currently at the forefront of the industry.