Cloud Radio Opens the Door to Profitable Mobile Broadband

The downstream rate in mobile networks has increased by a factor of 2000 over the past seven to eight years. This is an enormous technological leap that would have taken 20 years to achieve in fixed-line networks. The volume of mobile data traffic has surpassed that of voice traffic and will double each year over the next five years. By 2015, there will be an estimated four billion broadband users in the world, 80 to 90 percent of whom will be mobile broadband users. This sharp increase in mobile broadband subscribers has led to soaring data traffic, which in turn has caused costs to skyrocket for operators.
Rapidly developing mobile internet requires exponential growth in bandwidth for terminals. Fourth generation (4G) involves creating a bigger "runway" for faster speed and smooth internet. However, building such a high-speed runway is not easy feat. Their first problem is to have enough transmission resources to carry traffic over the runway.
With the rapid development of mobile internet, operators have to focus much more on user experience. Traditionally, networks have been coordinated around the cluster, which ensures good experience for users within the cluster. However, when users move between clusters, network coordination is poor or even nonexistent. This greatly affects user experience. Small cells can be introduced to reduce the effect of heavy traffic on a network. Traditional hexagonal network architecture can be broken down into hierarchical heterogeneous architecture, but operators have to address coordination between macrocells and microcells as well as interference between macrocells.
The rapid development of mobile internet has been twinned with the continual evolution of telecommunication technologies. Communications products are being upgraded in very short intervals. Therefore, coexistence of three-band, four-mode networks such as GSM, UMTS, LTE FDD, and LTE TDD is necessary. Operators need to improve equipment compatibility and enable multinetwork coordination with little or no change to hardware configuration. Innovative radio technologies address these issues. 
Cloud radio is a set of innovative techniques developed by ZTE for radio access networks. It comprises over 20 innovative techniques and 200 patents and can dynamically adapt to an operator's network regardless of existing conditions or future evolutions. To date, cloud radio has been considered the most complete, most advanced solution for boosting radio-access network performance. 
Cloud radio is adaptable to homogeneous and heterogeneous networks as well as macrocells, microcells, and picocells. More importantly, cloud radio can dynamically adapt to complex transmission scenarios and implement bidirectional transformations between wireline bearer bandwidth and wireless network performance.
For operators with abundant optical fiber, coordination provided by cloud radio can improve average throughput of the whole cell. In areas where demand for capacity is high, intercell baseband can be coordinated to increase uplink transmission gain in the overlay area by more than 3 dB and network capacity by 8.49 percent. Such coordination also improves network handover and makes the network more resistant to interference. Most operators have SDH- and PTN-based transmission, and different transmission equipment provides different bandwidths, even if the same transmission technique is used. By using a patented compression algorithm, cloud radio greatly reduces transmission overhead and saves transmission bandwidth by more than one order of magnitude. As well as reducing the need to invest in transmission, cloud radio also makes it possible to use various bearer techniques. Cloud radio has techniques that can be applied when transmission conditions are not ideal, and time delay is only increased slightly. Cloud radio resolves the fundamental technical and cost issues and helps operators improve the performance of their network. 
To ensure good user experience, a traditional network is coordinated using a baseband card and static configuration in the background. When different baseband cards are used for neighboring cells, coordination is poor at the cell edge. Cloud radio lifts this constraint by introducing many thresholds so that dynamic, real-time coordination is possible according to user location. In the LTE era, hard handovers will have the characteristics of 3G soft handovers whereby an end user does not perceive any change in the network environment.
The story of telecommunication development is also a story of anti-interference development. Telecommunication technology avoids or eliminates interference through subtraction. Cloud radio, however, solves the same problems through addition. Cloud radio combines many traditional physical cells into a supercell. This reduces the number of cell edges and handover times and improves user experience. Neighboring terminals are allocated different time or frequency spectra. Even if the two terminals are scheduled to the same time or frequency resource, interference can be inhibited by calculating a beamforming weight. In the age of experience economy, cloud radio is dynamically adaptive to network conditions. 
Future networks need to be heterogeneous, and small cells will be critically important for hotspot and indoor coverage. Almost blank subframe (ABS) has been introduced into eICIC to coordinate intercell interference in the time domain and reduce interference between macrocells and microcells. A cloud scheduler coordinates all small cells in the network. This avoids imbalanced or unreasonable resource allocation that occurs as a result of cells scrambling for resources during coordination. The cloud scheduler also optimizes the allocation of ABS to coordinate macrocells and microcells and obscure the border between macrocells. This further reduces interference between macrocells and boosts overall network performance.
Cloud radio maximizes network gain for minimal upgrade cost and helps operators balance cost with quality.
The first TD-LTE network was commercially deployed in South Asia in April 2012. To meet the ever-increasing demand for wireless data services with no change to existing network architecture, a growing number of TD-LTE base stations have to be deployed. The operator began making good use of existing network architecture to resolve the conflict between great demand for transmission bandwidth and network cost.
China Mobile is a strong promoter of TD-LTE. After deploying more than 3000 TD-LTE base stations in Guangzhou, they gave a questionnaire to equipment vendors that would be used to determine how to guarantee user experience and network quality while minimizing changes to network architecture.
Cloud radio encompasses many innovative technologies. The patented compression algorithm reduces transmission overhead. This helps operators maximize network performance and revenue and minimize cost. A cloud scheduler schedules the network as a whole and eliminates restrictions between baseband cards, base stations, and clusters to offer users a seamless, borderless network. Cloud radio opens up a new era for user experience.
Ideas change technology; technology changes behavior; behavior changes culture; culture changes economy; and economy changes business. With a moving cloud, cloud radio is opening the door to profitable mobile broadband.