H3G Austria: A Mobile Broadband Waltz

The Most Energetic Mobile Market in Europe

Austria is at the heart of Europe and is at the leading edge of European mobile communication. Its mobile market is highly developed and very competitive. By Q1 2012, SIM card penetration in Austria was 156% and growing.

Vigorous Newcomer; Ambitious Blueprint

Hutchison 3G (H3G) is one of the most important transnational operators and is a leader in wireless technology. In 2000, H3G received its 3G license and positioned itself as the most innovative mobile network operator in Austria. H3G has a strong focus on the Austrian market and continues to introduce new technologies and services there. In 2003, H3G Austria launched its 3G network and became the first operator in Austria to provide a pure 3G network.

When H3G entered Austria, the mobile voice market was saturated, and H3G Austria had to focus on mobile data. H3G Austria is ambitious to build the best mobile data network in Austria and provide users with affordable, high-quality 3G services.

For this reason, H3G Austria developed an ambitious goal: to achieve the lowest cost per megabyte in the market and to provide 94% network coverage with HSPA+. H3G Austria also aimed to reach a download rate up to 42 Mbps in September 2011 and cover high-traffic areas with LTE up to 100 Mbps in 2012.

The Magic of Mobile Broadband

H3G Austria’s existing network came under tremendous pressure. Weak, restricted data service and limited ability to evolve the network hampered H3G Austria’s development.

The company had to find a way to significantly improve network performance and smoothly evolve to HSPA+ and LTE. Eventually, H3G decided to swap out the whole network and build an evolvable and profitable mobile broadband network. After an exhaustive evaluation of vendors, H3G chose ZTE to help upgrade its network. 

ZTE helped H3G Austria modernize its wireless access network, core network, and bearer network. A six-year OAM service contract with ZTE guarantees that the network will perform stably.

Customized, Cost-Effective Wireless Solution

ZTE provided comprehensive Uni-RAN and Uni-Core solutions to H3G Austria.

ZTE’s SDR-based Uni-RAN solution, with unified hardware platform, supports multimode, multiband converged networking. It provides 21.6 Mbps HSPA+ and 43.2 Mbps DC-HSPA+ and can even be upgraded to LTE via software. The solution has allowed H3G Austria to build a high-performance mobile broadband network in a very short time. The same BBUs in the SDR base stations can be shared during LTE deployment. To upgrade to LTE, an LTE processing card need to be added into the SDR BBU, which supports 12 LTE cells in 20 MHz bandwidth and 3600 RRC connected users per site. Investment in hardware, equipment rooms, and other facilities is substantially reduced.

With extensive interworking and swap over experience, ZTE deployed its Uni-Core CS core network and swapped over the legacy circuit-switch network that had been installed by other vendors. ZTE provided many customized features so that H3G Austria can quickly deploy new services. In addition, ZTE’s CS core network supports future-proof evolution to IMS, so the network investment can be preserved.

ZTE’s Uni-Core solution provides service awareness and policy control to H3G’s packet network. This allows H3G to control different services and users. The network architecture is also simplified for better network management and smooth evolution. It has high bandwidth to meet the need of an ever-growing number of subscribers. The network is also very reliable so that it is protected against single point failures and unpredicted disasters. The new packet core has massive capacity to carry H3G Austria’s aggressively growing throughput. Network quality and user experience have been greatly improved.

●    Effective and reliable OAM

ZTE’s professional OAM solution ensures smooth migration from legacy network to ZTE-powered 3G and 4G. ZTE replaced a large number of H3G’s third-party base stations and reused existing power supplies, towers, air conditioners, shelters, relay nodes, and microwave equipment.

After ZTE swapped over the network and assumed OAM responsibilities, monthly fulfillment of the SLA has been above 99%. After one year of professional OAM by ZTE, network KPIs and customer satisfaction have both improved. The network now delivers a variety of feature-rich services to subscribers across Austria.

 ●  Fast deployment and delivery

H3G Austria planned to swap 4000 sites and 3200 microwave hops by the end of 2011. ZTE helped H3G Austria cope with challenges during the network update, and ZTE’s strong customized capability and implementation capability showed nothing is impossible.

The first challenge was reusing the cabinets because their heat dissipation qualities were not adequate for the new base stations. ZTE thoroughly surveyed the sites and proposed three solutions. Reusing legacy feeders and TMAs was a much tougher task. ZTE and H3G Austria classified and statistically recorded more than 10,000 TMAs and corresponding feeder connectors in the existing network. TMAs were reused across the whole network, and network KPIs were guaranteed.

Because cabinets, feeders, and TMAs were reused, labor costs were saved and implementation time was greatly shortened. By September 2011, ZTE had swapped over all 4000 sites and 3200 microwave hops. The project was finalized three months ahead of schedule.

At the end of 2011, H3G Austria launched the LTE network in the 2600 MHz band. H3G’s commercial LTE network has been deployed for hotspots and urban areas. The maximum downlink throughput is 100 Mbps. Currently, the LTE network comprises 200 sites and shares hardware facilities with the UMTS network. The number of LTE sites will be increased on a monthly basis.

Symphony of Success: The Best Network in Austria

Fast deployment gave H3G Austria more opportunities.

In June 2011, H3G Austria and ZTE held a joint press conference in Vienna to talk about the network update. They gave a live demo of DC-HSPA+ to show that H3G’s download speed was the highest in Austria.

In September 2011, the network had been completely updated and throughput had been increased tenfold. H3G Austria could now transport as much data as the other two Austrian operators combined.

In December 2011, CONNECT magazine reported on the network tests carried out in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The report stated that H3G Austria had the best-performing network in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. A score of 476 was the highest ever given by CONNECT. Just one year before, H3G Austria had scored poorly in the CONNECT test.

In October 2012, H3G Austria again came out on top in the CONNECT network test. The subscriber base grew rapidly in 2012, and the uplink and downlink data volume doubled within a year. H3G Austria’s network continued to perform perfectly and won the test. This again proved that H3G has the best network in Austria.

In July 2012, network traffic reached 3 PB per month.