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By Hu Kaiwei
As 3G users become more
habitual in their use of
microblogging and mobile
video, the era of mobile Internet is
approaching at an ever-increasing
pace. Competition facing mobile
operators is fierce, and with the
explosion of mobile Internet traffic, the
costs of constructing, operating, and
upgrading wireless access networks
are increasing. However, in many
cases, APRU is not increasing much
or is even dropping. The development
of mobile Internet is being hampered
by traditional mobile networks, which
cannot meet the demands of large
amounts of mobile data.
Restrictions in Traditional
Mobile Networks
Mobile Internet users with smart
terminals and tablet PCs require
ubiquitous signal coverage. Highorder
modulation, high spectrum, and
high bandwidth are characteristics
of LTE—a new wireless broadband
technology designed to support mobile
Internet access via cell phones and
handheld devices. Microcell coverage
is preferred in LTE; however,
traditional mobile network design
restricts the development of highspeed
mobile Internet.
Construction and O&M costs for
traditional mobile networks are
high because auxiliary facilities
such as equipment room, air
conditioners, transmission and
power supply are needed for base
stations. Infrastructure equipment
accounts for about 30% of TCO.
Auxiliary facilities also consume
much energy.
Cell signals in a traditional
mobile network are separate and
processed independently. Also,
there can be much interference and
little collaboration between base
stations. Therefore, high bandwidth
is not supported.
The capacity of a mobile network
varies from time to time and from
place to place. This causes a tidal
effect. Each cell in a traditional
mobile network is designed with
maximum capacity. If there is
spare capacity, resources cannot
be shared throughout the network.
This is inefficient. The tidal effect
is more pronounced in the mobile
Internet era because of higher data
throughput, and it is necessary to
share network resources.
Where multiple wireless systems
coexist, wireless networks
with different standards can be
operated. However, multisystem
convergence is difficult with a
traditional network design.
To address these problems, China
Mobile has put forward C-RAN—an
innovative and environmentally
friendly access network architecture
for wireless networks. C-RAN has
October 2011
ZTE TECHNOLOGIES
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