At ITU Telecom World 2017, Huawei released ”4G Wireless Broadband Industry” White Paper, giving an in-depth analysis on this topic. As per the white paper, more than 1 billion households globally will be connected through wireless technologies. The total number of wireless broadband users has exceeded 50 million globally with 100% YoY growth rate since 2015. The collaboration of fixed and wireless technologies also contributes to achieve the strategic goals in ITU Connect 2020.
The white paper affirms the great achievement in increasing the household broadband penetration in recent years under the guidance of ITU, but there are some difficulties to overcome, such as lack of infrastructure, higher cost, longer ROI (Return of Investment) in rural areas. In urban areas, it is also hard to further increase broadband penetration due to the constraints of civil works, or because the cost of fixed broadband is unaffordable for low-income group of people.
WTTx (Wireless to Everything) which is based on 4G LTE technologies achieves high-speed broadband access with low-cost by fully utilizing legacy mobile network infrastructure. WTTx has been widely deployed in over 100 commercial networks around the world, serving more than 50 million households, including both developing markets such as Africa, Southeast Asia, Middle East, and developed markets like Japan, Europe and North America. WTTx has huge advantages in less populated rural areas. It is an ideal solution as last mile access for unconnected families by greatly cut-down of the cost and period of network deployment. In urban and suburban areas, WTTx can not only provide broadband connectivity in a timely basis, but also improve the speed for those who only have low speed access.
The white paper also emphasizes the future evolution of WTTx towards 5G. With the minimum and necessary upgrade in the existing network, WTTx is able to considerably improve user experience while reduce greatly the costs per bit in the same time.
Huawei is committed to working with ITU and other partners in ICT industry to promote the development of wireless home broadband, including reusing the mobile infrastructure, providing more spectrum, early adoption of 5G key technologies like Massive-MIMO as well as device and home applications. Huawei together with global operators makes regular study on challenges and solutions and delivers the latest progress in technology and industry.
It is a big challenge to achieve the goals for home broadband in ITU Connect 2020 vision. In view of that, the white paper suggests to strengthen industry collaboration of all stakeholders promote broadband targets in each country. From the global WTTx success stories, despite the difference in geography, economy and user behaviors, there is a common factor success: proper policy and regulation framework.
Firstly, wireless technology should be included into the national broadband plan. The second, the regulation rules should be service-oriented, which means to apply the same rules including taxation and funding for fixed and wireless home broadband regardless of technologies. Furthermore, the cost of wireless broadband could be further reduced with more spectrum available and more infrastructure could be used for deployment.
Veni Shone, Vice President of Huawei Wireless Solution, said: “Under the leadership of ITU, Huawei and other partners are provide more and more high-quality home broadband access, bridging the digital divide and connecting them to Internet services. In this way, they are able to enjoy digital benefits in education, medical care, financing service and so on. For the benefits of the unconnected households, we suggest to enhance the collaboration of fixed and wireless broadband in technology and in regulation, in order to build a better connected world.”
