2024 marks the first year of 5.5G commercial use. As a continuation of 5G technologies, 5.5G provides even higher rates, lower latency, and higher reliability, growing into the infrastructure for digital and intelligence across industries in an intelligent world.
Since the earliest days of 5G, the requirements have begun to diversify for indoor scenarios. For example, the VIP hall of an airport requires ultra-high speed, a stadium demands ultra-large capacity, a smart factory must have reliable connections, while an underground parking lot and elevators need continuous coverage. These differences will only be more prominent in the 5.5G era.
Industry-leading LampSite X Platform Dynamically Adapts to All Indoor Scenarios
Facing this diversification of demand, Huawei drew on knowledge built up over many years in the industry, developed and launched the LampSite X platform on the global market. As a new-generation indoor digital platform, it provides industry-leading network capabilities that can flexibly adapt to all indoor scenarios.
The LampSite X platform uses multiple world-leading or unique core technologies to enable dynamic modular adaptation. It offers remarkable flexibility, by adding hardware modules to support more frequency bands, or loading software packages to switch between single-operator and multi-operator modes. In addition, it supports the industry’s first distributed massive MIMO and 0 Bit 0 Watt technologies, making it simple, green, and intelligent. All these give an unparalleled edge to the solutions developed on the LampSite X platform.
Based on the LampSite X platform, two products are developed: One is the high-performance LampSite solution for deep coverage and large capacity. It is applicable in high-density and heavy-load scenarios such as stadiums, transportation hubs, shopping malls, supermarkets, and factories. The other is the low-cost solution LightSite, which focuses on basic coverage and medium- and low-capacity scenarios. It applies to low- and medium-value indoor scenarios and provides consistent indoor and outdoor experience for mobile users.
LampSite: High Performance uplifts Network Quality and Revenue
As the indoor flagship solution, LampSite supports multi-band integration of sub-6 GHz and mmWave, simplifying deployment and delivering supreme performance. It features Gbps-level ultra-large uplink, submeter-level positioning, millisecond-level stable latency, and IoT capabilities in high-, medium-, and low-speed scenarios, enabling operators to support various applications over a single network.
In the 10 Gbps business district of Causeway Bay in Hong Kong, over a short span of three months, the number of activated AR users exceeded 300,000, the traffic in the area increased by more than 20%, and the tenant revenue increased by more than HKD3.5 million. The Causeway Bay deployment is a great example of operators pursuing an XtoBtoC business model, in which they go beyond providing single network capabilities to providing multi-service convergence services.
In a thermal power plant in Hebei province, LampSite is deployed indoors in the campus to replace the functionalities of Wi-Fi, UWB, and LAN on one network. The solution supports various indoor applications for the enterprise, including positioning, data collection, backhaul, AGV scheduling, etc.. The initial deployment and subsequent O&M costs are reduced by more than CNY3 million, the safety management efficiency is more than doubled, and the risk handling is 20% more efficient.
LightSite: A Cost-effective Way of Ensuring User Experience
Focusing on cost-effectiveness, LightSite can extend network coverage to partition-filled indoor scenarios such as office buildings and hotels, by connecting one module to multiple external antennas. In deep indoor scenarios such as underground parking lots and elevators, it uses the relay technology to implement simplified site deployment without BBUs.
In China, digital network construction has been generally completed for high-value indoor scenarios, while medium- and low-value scenarios are still gradually being explored. In January 2024, China initiated the “Signal Upgrade” campaign, which plans to implement deep mobile network coverage in more than 120,000 key venues across China within two years. In 95% of scenarios covered, the average downlink rate of mobile networks will be no lower than 220 Mbps, and the average uplink rate will be no lower than 45 Mbps. Till now, the LightSite solution has seen large-scale commercial use in many provinces and cities across China.
MBBF Foresight
At the upcoming Global Mobile Broadband Forum (MBBF), Huawei will disclose more information about the LampSite X platform. Please join us at MBBF to experience the capabilities of the LampSite X platform and discuss pressing indoor 5.5G topics at the indoor digitalization industry roundtable.
The 15th Global Mobile Broadband Forum, with a tagline of ‘5.5G Leads Mobile AI Era’, will run from October 30 to 31 in Istanbul, Türkiye. It will be hosted by Huawei with support from our industry partners GSMA and GTI. Together with operators, vertical industry leaders, and ecosystem partners, we will share the industry’s latest advancements and explore new opportunities. Industry stakeholders will discuss how to achieve 5.5G business success in the Mobile AI era, and leverage the success of 5G to attain even greater achievements with 5.5G.