LTE North America Awards 2011 Winners: ZTE - "ZTE is dedicated to the LTE ecosystem"

We speak to Mr. Wayne Hou, vice president of product marketing for ZTE USA, following the announcement of the company winning the Best Enabling Technology for LTE category at the LTE North America Awards 2011, held last week in Dallas, Texas, USA.

Can you tell us a little more about your entry?

Our ZXSDR BS8920 reflects ZTE’s LTE strengths. ZTE is making continual progress towards becoming a bigger international player with recent international LTE wins.

From 2004, we have invested continuously in LTE R&D activities and in 2010 was up to €140 million. We have expert-led LTE R&D teams, high performance product development management system, and internal annual awards programs to ensure continuous developments. ZTE has secured 235 LTE essential patents, created a full range of LTE base station products, such as the world’s first CDMA/LTE dual-mode 4T4R radio unit and the world’s first commercial LTE Micro Base Station BS8920. We’ve also completed the industry’s first interoperability test between FDD-LTE/TD-LTE and GSM/UMTS, showcased VoLTE over IMS, and launched innovative LTE devices.

In the first half of 2011, ZTE secured significant new LTE contract wins, exceeding its success in  2010. By Q3 2011, ZTE had concluded 28 LTE commercial contracts including CSL, Telenor, Sonaecom, and Hi3G, as well as nearly 90 trial networks with leading operators.

Why do you think the judges chose your entry for this award?

We think the judges may have considered the fact that we have strong LTE R&D capabilities and make continuous investment. We also have a forward-looking network vision that helps carriers to overcome ever increasing challenges. Offering a leading edge end-to-end solutions is another atttraction; one that includes EPC, Uni-RAN and strong LTE terminal capabilities. Our soloutions lower TCO to help ensure carrier competitiveness. Finally, we offer global project handling capabilities.

What recent industry developments does it specifically address?

The ZXSDR BS8920 specifically addresses the following industry developments. If is an innovative heterogeneous network solution, for small cells that handles multiple technologies inlcuding VoLTE and solution LTE-A.

What plans do you have to improve it in the coming months?

ZTE will continue to provide the lowest TCO solution based on our strong end-to-end capabilities and close cooperation with hosting service partner. ZTE will put more efforts into delivering customized small cell solutions for North America customers.

What changes do you believe are ahead for the LTE industry as a whole?

For the telecoms industry the terminal device is now an internet platform. The influence of M2M is also huge, connecting all the devices, reducing the need for man power, and overall making society more intelligent. The Cloud is also providing many new services. These solutions require a huge, but smart pipe and this is what LTE/LTE-A can provide.

How does being named in the awards shortlist benefit your business?

It’s very meaningful and helpful for ZTE’s business. The recognition makes carriers aware of the developments ZTE has made in LTE field. ZTE is dedicated to the LTE ecosystem, and is hoping for positive feedback from industry as well.