[China, Hangzhou, June 1, 2021] Recently, China Mobile Zhejiang verified a pilot 5G network in the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center. Running on Huawei’s leading products and solutions, the network utilized 2.6 GHz and 4.9 GHz bands to provide 5G coverage in enclosed ultra-dense areas. In addition, 5G indoor distributed Massive MIMO was an outstanding highlight of the network.
The verification test utilized more than 400 5G devices to perform stress tests with multiple networking solutions involving intra-frequency, staggered-frequency, inter-frequency, and distributed massive MIMO. In this process, the cells were under extreme capacity levels and 5G user behavior was also simulated to assess the performance of capacity increase, interference mitigation, and network redundancy.
The test results showed that the uplink capacity was 50% greater than that obtained with cell splitting and the downlink and uplink interference is efficiently curbed. This level of performance suffices to fulfill the tremendous service requirements for messaging, Internet access, video transfer, and broadcasting with good user experience. This will be essential for network assurance in the smart stadiums for the 2022 Asia Games.
The uplink reached 1.2 Gbps in the stadium in distributed massive MIMO cells with a 2:3 slot assignment
The 80,000-seat Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center is an iconic lotus-petal modeled construction, where the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Asian Games are expected to take place. China Mobile is the official partner for communication services at this event.
And, as a part of the network assurance efforts, China Mobile’s provincial branch of Zhejiang established a work team with Huawei to explore new bands, products, solutions, features, and approaches to increase capacity and resolve strong interference in ultra-dense indoor areas. There will be a large number of 5G users and diverse services occurring during the games. With this in mind, the work team serves to work out solutions that can increase network capacity while minimizing the rate loss arising from interference between cells. A balance between 5G capacity and service experience is essential to enable dedicated smart services by improving both user-perceived rate and network capacity. It will also prove helpful when building 5G networks in other dense scenarios as an experience in delivering superior user experience.
After thoroughly surveying the site and studying solutions, China Mobile Zhejiang adopted 2.6 GHz + 4.9 GHz dual-band networking for the project. The 4.9 GHz band was used to deploy the capacity layer on which Huawei’s indoor distributed Massive MIMO was deployed and 2:3 slot assignment was configured. This combination enabled a single cell to provide an uplink rate of 1.2 Gbps. In addition, 16×16 ultra-narrow precise beamforming was implemented by leveraging the high-performance antennas to efficiently isolate interference. Tests in the grandstand areas on both floors 2 and 3 of the stadium showed that indoor distributed Massive MIMO could eliminate interference between cells, helping to increase the uplink capacity by 50% over 4T4R cells.
Indoor distributed Massive MIMO opens up a new direction for exploring just how big indoor 5G networks can evolve. Incorporating the leading technologies of outdoor 5G Massive MIMO into indoor networks, distributed Massive MIMO provides indoor networks with joint beamforming and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) to enhance both the 5G network capacity and user experience. It eliminates the co-channel interference to improve signal quality on multi-cell networks, providing a consistent high-speed, high-quality experience in most areas with 5G coverage.
China Mobile Zhejiang strives to build high-quality 5G networks to provide users with premium services and help the city of Hangzhou host Asia Games while supercharging it with smart services. Indoor distributed Massive MIMO will be the ideal option for large venues with a large number of 5G mobile users who are looking for a smarter spectating experience. It will play a crucial role in making the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center stand out as a benchmark for smart stadiums across China and beyond.
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