An interview with Ling Zhi, Vice President of ZTE.

February 25, 2021

5 Min Read
ZTE Is Committed to Empowering Different Industries With Digital Technology

1. How much growth is ZTE seeing in 5G outside of China?

Against the status quo of challenging external environment in last year, ZTE has maintained sturdy growth in both domestic and overseas markets.

We keep expanding our footprint in high-end market with our wireless products. For example, in Europe, ZTE together with Wind Tre launched 5G services in over 56 cities in Italy. At the same time we are in the process of deploying 5G in 6 different cities in North Spain. Moreover, we were the first to deploy real 5G core network in Austria which is ready to provision the real 5G Stand Alone network.

In Asia, we are working with the top 2 operators in Thailand, AIS and TRUE to help them accelerate the commercialization of Digital Thailand.

2. To what extent are private networks a catalyst for 5G deployments?

The core value of 5G is to empower the verticals, which will bring revolutionary network experience to consumers and various new applications to enterprises. Currently, many countries have placed 5G networks as the focus of development.

The 5G private network benefits is parallel to the advantages of 5G.5G industrial private network advantages include data security- While improving the throughput and reducing the latency, the data is kept inside the enterprise as much as possible it also entails benefits such as large bandwidth, wide connection, low latency, and high security, to meet the requirements of intelligent production modes and digital transformation in vertical industries. In the long run, the 5G private network can be compatible and interoperable with the existing IT network to meet the requirements of continuous evolution and upgrade of network capabilities and technologies. An important point for most enterprises is that the integration and deployment of 5G public network and private network can shorten the construction period and thus greatly reduce costs.

4. Can you tell us about any recent 5G SA deployments in Europe that illustrate ZTE's approach to private networks?

Recently, we have deployed first large-scale 5G SA private network in Belgium and provided 5G applications in Antwerp port, Europe's second largest port, to build 5G+ smart port together with other industry partners.

The 5G SA network deployed at the port of Antwerp adopts ZTE’s 5G NR 3.7GHz 64T64R/8T8R and 700MHz base stations, cutting-edge Massive MIMO technologies, 5G Common Core, end-to-end slice management system. It not only features high speed and low latency, but also supports unique network slicing functionality, thereby providing enterprises on campus with highly reliable networks. Moreover, the slice isolation and MEC function ensure that different enterprise data can be isolated from each other without leaving the campus, thereby providing higher enterprise data security.

Additionally, in Spain, we made the first 5G SA call in Europe and tested advanced 5G features like Massive-MIMO, VoNR, URLLC, and slicing. ZTE and Drei Austria jointly demonstrated the first end-to-end network slicing operation based on Slicing store in the industry. By means of customized slicing, the operator's transformation from B2C traffic operation to B2B, B2B2C and B2B2B slicing traffic operation mode became possible. It deeply integrates 5G with vertical industries and thoroughly explores and monetizes 5G value. So far, we have more than 500 partners in 15 industries.

5. How has ZTE managed to persevere and succeed outside of China during the epidemic?

The 2020 epidemic caused a sharp increase in user network demands, hence, ZTE accelerated digital transformation meet to the demands. ZTE has increased its R&D investment, and launched a series of online office software and app to support employees' remote and mobile office, making full use of the efficient collaboration brought by digital transformation. In 2020, the online office software and app has helped the nearly 70000 employees in ZTE to complete online cloud work during the epidemic. More importantly, More importantly, compared with face-to-face office work, the online work efficiency of ZTE's 30000 R&D personnel has reached 95%. The series of new online office software and app developed by ZTE quickly meet the requirements of ZTE and laid a solid foundation for the smooth development of overseas services.

In addition, in the field of client collaboration, ZTE keeps seamless contact with clients and partners through the clients supply collaboration platform. The turnover efficiency of ZTE was increased by 15% each year, which greatly improved the client satisfaction during the epidemic and ensures the smooth development of ZTE's overseas communication services.

6. Do you think ZTE will continue to have a strong online presence in 5G industry education after the epidemic?

Yes, I think ZTE will continue to have a strong online presence in 5G industry education after the epidemic. We do not believe that everyone will go back to normal in a day, online education will ensure their security. In the post-epidemic era, we will continue to promote the development of the 5G+ industry, actively organizing online activities to close the gap between customers and partners, and jointly building up a brand-new 5G ecosystem.

We are standardizing the efforts that has gone into maintain our relationships with the customers. The different training that has been organized and different applications and portals that has been created will continue to be updated. As the "road builder of digital economy", ZTE will leverage its comprehensive advantages of "Device, Network, Cloud, and Platform therefore to enable various industry client to achieve digital technology development.

This content is sponsored by ZTE.

ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763)

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