ZTE Corporation is one of the winners of TelecomLead.com Innovation Leaders 2020 for launching an innovative 5G energy saving solution called PowerPilot.
Telcos spend on average 5 percent to 6 percent of their operating expenses, excluding depreciation and amortization, on energy costs, according to MTN Consulting. Spend on energy cost is expected to rise with the shift to 5G network.
A typical 5G base station consumes up to twice or more the power of a 4G base station, writes MTN Consulting Chief Analyst Matt Walker in a new report.
China Mobile EVP Li Zhengmao in November 2019 said that its electricity costs were rising fast with 5G. China Mobile has tried using lower cost deployments of MIMO antennas, specifically 32T32R and sometimes 8T8R rather than 64T64R, according to MTN.
ZTE’s PowerPilot assists mobile operators to realize higher energy efficiency, lower carbon footprint and achieve more sustainable growth. PowerPilot can also deliver services to the energy-efficient networks in real time, by intelligently evaluating service requirements.
ZTE’s PowerPilot, according to a model using typical network configurations, can save up to twice as much energy as the existing energy saving solutions, greatly reducing the Opex for mobile operators.
In addition to employing existing multi-layer energy saving technologies, which introduce AI and big data to save network O&M labor, PowerPilot has coordinated multiple frequency bands and radio access technologies, to further reduce the energy consumption.
ZTE has more than 500 green patents reflecting the company’s focus on innovation. ZTE earlier said its expenditure for Research and Development (R&D) increased 15.3 percent to RMB 10.79 billion, accounting for 14.6 percent of 9-month revenue in 2020.
By the end of September 2020, ZTE had secured 55 5G commercial contracts, in partnerships with over 90 operators in 5G and covering over 500 industry partners. ZTE is already one of the leaders in 5G network business in China.
Winners of the TelecomLead.com Innovation Awards 2020 were selected by a group of technology journalists, analysts and telecom industry veterans. We are not disclosing their names since some of them have NDA-related issues.
