China Mobile's new phase of TD-LTE bidding will build 200,000 base stations, covering more than 100 cities across the country, involving more than 20 billion yuan in equipment bidding, and implying the trend of China’s 4G market, which is self-evident to equipment vendors. Metaphor.
The reason why China Mobile, which is the most motivated to operate 4G, imposed a "dragging strategy" on this bidding is that the frequency bands currently available for China Mobile to build a network are at least F-band and D-band, and F-band is based on the original TD- SCDMA base station upgrade and co-site construction are two options. According to sources from equipment vendors, not only are equipment vendors divided into different camps due to the path of network construction, but China Mobile is also arguing about this.
On May 8, Feng Yingduo, Executive Vice President of Ericsson Northeast Asia, said in an interview with reporters that China Mobile’s TD-LTE scale-up test showed that in the F-band, the upgrade from TD-SCDMA is facing blocking interference, Obstacles in terms of network performance, and its project construction cycle and investment have no advantages compared with co-location and new construction. "We think the new construction plan is better."
China Mobile network construction path divergence
In the TD-LTE expanded experimental network of China Mobile's previous 13 cities, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou used F-band deployment, and other cities used D-band deployment.
The D frequency band is the global mainstream TD-LTE frequency band determined by the International Telecommunication Union. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China has also clarified that a total of 190MHz (2500-2690MHz) of this frequency band is used for TD-LTE. The F frequency band was previously the main frequency band of China Mobile's TD-SCDMA. According to an equipment manufacturer, from the scale-up experiment of China Mobile's 13 cities, there is no significant difference in network coverage and network performance in these two frequency bands.
Feng Yingduo said that in the 4G era, due to the rapid increase in data traffic brought about by the mobile Internet, spectrum is the core competitive resource for operators. In the long term, operators will not give up all available frequencies.
In this way, China Mobile's 4G network construction has F-band, D-band, and F/D hybrid networking and other solutions, making it difficult for operator executives to decide for a while. For equipment vendors, the D-band will only be a new way to build, and it is the same starting line for everyone, and whether the F-band is upgraded or newly built will fundamentally affect the interests of different equipment vendors.
In the process of China Mobile’s 3G TD-SCDMA network construction, Huawei and ZTE are the most important suppliers, occupying the dominant market share, while foreign manufacturers such as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks have been in China Mobile’s 3G market due to late start-up time and insufficient investment. The share obtained is limited. Feng Yingduo admitted to reporters that Ericsson not only has a small share in the TD-SCDMA market, but also "mainly adopts OEM Datang equipment."
As a result, if China Mobile’s 4G network construction adopts software upgrades in the F-band where 3G is located, foreign manufacturers such as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens will have extremely limited gains, while ZTE, Huawei, etc., will continue to take advantage of their huge share in the 3G market. -Occupy a dominant position in LTE.
At present, when China Mobile's 200,000 TD-LTE base station bidding is on the line, various news about network construction plans are spreading wildly. Recently, it has been reported that China Mobile will take the F-band upgrade as the main and new construction as a supplementary method, and the proportion of newly-built D-band is only a quarter.
"China Mobile has not issued a bid to the equipment vendor, and the internal consensus has not yet reached a final consensus." Feng Yingduo told reporters.
Guangzhou sample dissection
In the face of the obvious pattern of interests, different equipment vendors have formed two distinct camps. Feng Yingduo told reporters that based on factors such as technical indicators and long-term interests of operators, Ericsson believes that the new construction plan is more ideal. "The comparison of the two network construction plans in Guangzhou is a sample."
Guangzhou is the first batch of cities where China Mobile conducts TD-LTE commercial trials. At present, about 3,700 base stations have been built, and the scale of station construction ranks first among the first 13 cities. At present, the industry’s controversial network construction schemes have been tried in Guangzhou’s expanded experimental network. Among them, Ericsson built about 1,100 base stations by co-location, and ZTE built the remaining base stations by upgrading from TD-SCDMA. Base station.
Liu Jinlong, vice president of ZTE Corporation, said in an interview with reporters in December last year that ZTE’s smooth upgrade method can share a lot of original equipment. “It’s enough to speed up the baseband board.” The network construction cost is relatively low and the network construction cycle is longer. short.
"The support of the current network TD-SCDMA equipment for the upgrade plan is far less than expected." Ericsson expressed tit-for-tat opinions on this.
On May 8, the relevant person in charge of Ericsson told reporters that, first of all, the location of the F-band is complex, including both PHS and TD-SCDMA. The inherent inadequacy of the equipment's radio frequency performance, as well as blocking and spurious phenomena, will cause the network Interference affects network performance. Only by replacing the RRU of the original 3G equipment on a large scale can the problem be solved. Secondly, TD-LTE uses time division duplexing, and the ratio of uplink and downlink time slots determines the time resource allocation of the two solutions. The F-band upgrade plan will reduce the downlink capacity by about 25%; third, TD-LTE technology is quite different from the existing 2G and 3G networks, and puts forward different requirements for network optimization. The upgrade plan will increase the operator’s later Difficulty in network optimization.
"Theoretically, the software can be upgraded in one hour, but in the actual network construction process, not only the RRU is wrong, but many TD-SCDMA equipment built in the early stage are also old, and the antenna needs to be rebuilt." A person from Ericsson told reporters in Guangzhou. In the process of network construction, the upgrade method is actually to replace part of the old equipment with new equipment that can be upgraded.
Feng Yingduo said that the new method in the F-band can obtain better network performance indicators. At the same time, the upgrade model has no advantages in project construction and investment.
"The upgrade method seems to be fast and save investment, but this is only in theory." Feng Yingduo said that for a certain stock of TD-SCDMA upgrades on the existing network, RRU/antennas need to be replaced, which involves property coordination and the engineering of the two The amount is not much different. In terms of investment, if co-located construction is adopted, whether it is new construction or upgrade, the investment reuse ratio is about 70%, and the overall investment between the two plans is not big.
Ericsson’s person in charge of Guangzhou’s TD-LTE network construction told reporters that the construction cycle is not too different. “Friends started to build at the beginning of last year and were completed at the end of last year. Now they are still optimizing; The progress of the two is almost the same."
"Considering comprehensive factors such as technology, investment, and construction period, Ericsson believes that the new plan is better." A person from Ericsson said that this view has also been recognized by the Mobile Research Institute and the network technology department.
Of course, for China Mobile, there are many factors to consider comprehensively. ZTE and Huawei have always invested heavily in TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE, and have made great contributions to the maturity of the industry chain. Operators should Consider giving them more returns; at the same time, TD-LTE also needs the support of global industrial chains such as Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. It cannot become one or two dominant players, and other manufacturers lose the motivation to continue investing.