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Mobile World Congress Videos

Light Reading's Show Site: Barcelona, Spain  |  February 27 - March 1

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MWC 2011 Photos: ZTE Booth Tour

BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2011 -- Our final destination on our seven-company photo tour marathon was at the stand of Chinese vendor ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763).

The company recorded further impressive growth in 2010, and is keen to be seen at the leading edge of mobile technology developments along with the other major infrastructure suppliers. (See ZTE Increases Annual Sales by 17% and Market Spotlight: LTE TDD.)

So what was it showing off this year in Barcelona? And how would it cope with the time constraints?

ZTE was one of seven vendors we visited with our resident photographer. We gave them all just 10 minutes to talk about the three products they felt were the most important/cutting-edge/game-changing, etc. We've already run the other booth tours. (See MWC 2011 Photos: Huawei Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: AlcaLu Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: Cisco Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: Ericsson Booth Tour, MWC 2011 Photos: NSN Booth Tour and MWC 2011 Photos: NEC Booth Tour.)

Last year ZTE disappointed, with general chitchat about the market, and it scored a B- grade. Could it up its game in 2011? (See MWC 2010 Photos: ZTE Booth Tour and Booth Photo Tour Report Card.)

Check out the pictures below, with accompanying text, and find out how we (totally subjectively) graded ZTE's overall effort by reading the final picture caption.

Click thumbnails for full-size image.

Figure 1: Get a Little Closer
We edged toward the ZTE stand to do the last of the seven vendor booth tours, and really didn't know what to expect.
Figure 2: We Weren't Expecting...
...a color scheme from Swinging London circa 1968, but that's what we found. And we liked it! But that's not part of the official tour, and doesn't count toward the grade. So it was out with the stopwatch and off we go!
Figure 3: Behind the Scenes for LTE-Advanced
The first of the three products ZTE wanted to show off was its dual-carrier LTE-Advanced radio access infrastructure. You know, the proper 4G stuff.
Figure 4: Pointing Out the Capacity
ZTE's Peng He implores Light Reading's international editor to check out the potential of the LTE-Advanced system, which has been designed to combine two 20MHz channels (dual carrier), to give 40MHz of capacity, and 8x8 MIMO (multi-input multi-output) antennas to enable theoretical downlink speeds of 1 Gbit/s.
Figure 5: It's a 4G Box!
There's something comforting about the fact that a software-defined radio unit for 4G mobile broadband is a metal box with cables stuck into ports around the back. The product is a prototype at the moment, but is set to be commercially available in 2012.
Figure 6: Go On, Have One!
ZTE's Peng He makes a very kind offer, but even Light Reading's pockets aren't big enough to carry one of those.
Figure 7: Hang On to Those Specs!
Next up was the Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) system ZTE has developed for the planning, rollout and monitoring of LTE-Advanced networks. We needed a closer look.
Figure 8: Applauso!
ZTE's Peng He decided the CoMP system deserved its own round of applause! But what makes it so good? Well, he told us...
Figure 9: Interference Killer!
The CoMP, which is still a prototype currently, is used to simulate what sort of interference there might be between LTE-Advanced eNodeBs, and then makes adjustments to the network to kill that interference, according to Peng He.
Figure 10: Three-Screen Presence
With time running out, ZTE introduced us to its telepresence system that can bring together participants from three locations in one screen, with the feeds from the end-user locations able to be fed into the real-time management system across connections using different wireless technologies -- for example, HSPA+, FDD LTE and LTE TDD (or TD-LTE as it's called in this picture).
Figure 11: Playing the Game
We love the old-fashioned games apps, especially when the penhold technique is deployed... So ZTE's 10 minutes were over, and the company had shown us a glimpse of its radio access future, a method for maximizing its potential in the field and a video-based application running over the latest mobile technologies. A neat package and a clear improvement over the previous year. ZTE is awarded a B++ grade.

All photos by Siqui Sánchez/Getty Images. The captions, though, can't be pinned on him. He's blameless.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading
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