China Mobile and ZTE jointly showcase world's first 5G NTN field trial

30 August 2022, Shenzhen, China - ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the mobile internet, together with China Mobile Research Institute, China Transport Telecommunications & Information Group, the Beijing Branch of China Mobile and other partners, has showcased world’s first 5G NTN (Non-Terrestrial Network) field trial at the 5G-Advanced Industry Development Summit in Beijing.

This brings achievement breakthroughs in two aspects, ultra-long distance as far as 36,000 km and direct connection between mobile phones, enabled by two innovations including dynamic compensation of big latency and RF data conversion between the satellite and terrestrial. The trial was end-to-end and demonstrated services such as short messages and voice services, with satisfactory performances. The trial included a comprehensive set of tests of the direct connection between the mobile phone and the satellite, which gives support for a network of ubiquitous connection, more use cases, highly integrated industry chains, and low O&M costs.

The trial was based on the 3GPP R17 and was based on a network architecture using high-orbit satellite for transparent forwarding to implement end-to-end link interconnection among terminals, satellites, terrestrial gateways, base stations, core networks, and service servers. The L-band satellite and terrestrial gateways, located between the NTN terminal and the base station, were responsible for air-interface message transmission. The terrestrial gateways were interconnected with the 5G NTN base station. The terminal was connected to the terrestrial core network and service platform through the satellite, gateways, and NTN base station in turn to implement end-to-end service interconnection.

During this trial, communication cases such as synchronization, broadcasting, accessing and data transmission, and services such as short text messages and voice messages were successfully tested. The latency of 64-byte ping is about 4s. The performance met the expectations, indicating the solution is very likely feasible. In the future, there will be emergency communication service pilot projects in Beijing, Yunnan, and other provinces.

5G non-terrestrial network (5G NTN), together with the terrestrial network, forms an integrated ubiquitous network, which features in a variety of use cases, highly integrated industry chains, and low O&M costs. It uses satellite communication for powerful coverage to meet people’s demands of better accessibility of the mobile internet around the world  and provide emergency, marine, remote areas and IoT communication services, facilitating the comprehensive development of CHBN (Customer, Home, Business, New). The close integration of satellite and terrestrial industrial chains creates a win-win situation. The satellite telecommunication network can reuse the cellular network and significantly reduce terminal cost. In addition, the number of cellular network base stations and centralized deployment can significantly reduce deployment and O&M costs.

In this new stage of 5G-Advanced, this end-to-end 5G NTN’s field trial success helps build a solid foundation for direct phone-to-satellite communication business model. This service provides users with more reliable and consistent experiences, and connects space, air, ground, and sea, forming an integrated ubiquitous network.