C114, May 25, 2016: The China's first "Smart Home" industry cooperation pilot site has opened up on May 17, 2016, the World Telecommunications Day. On this site, China Telecom (Shanghai) presets various smart home scenarios for persons in a down-to-earth style. Huawei, the major partner, shows an end-to-end solution from the pipeline platform to the smart terminal, which extends residential services "from walls to fingers".
In the pilot site adjacent to Tongji University, C114 made an interview with Zhou Jun, the vice president of Huawei Access Network Product Line. Zhou Jun elaborated Huawei's understanding and thinking about "Smart Home" and Gigabit ultra-broadband access, and how Huawei supports carriers to deploy future-oriented home networks. Also, he presented us the latest news in these fields.
"China's broadband industry is now ushering the Gigabit access era. Smart Home, together with 4K/8K HD video, has become the force in driving core services", as Zhou Jun stated. He expressed that carriers play special roles in "Smart Home" ecosphere. This pilot point built up by China Telecom (Shanghai) has a profound significance to the healthy and sustainable development of the industry and is expected to promote normal business circulation with continuous innovation and open collaboration.
"Smart Home" Drives Gigabit Access
In recent years, Gigabit access has become the tide in the access network. Till the end of year 2015, about 80 carriers have pushed Gigabit packages. As shown in Infonetics data, service providers (SPs) willing to provide 1 Gbit/s broadband access for home users will be increased from 15% (2015) to 40% (2017).
In China, China Telecom (Shanghai) released the world's first FTTH Gigabit access pilot community in "5.17" (the World Telecommunications Day), 2015. FTTH in this pilot community is provisioned based on symmetric 10G EPON and it provides 3-channel 4K TV, 1-channel HD IPTV, 3-channel video conferencing, 5-channel HD home Mega Eyes (a video surveillance system promoted by China Telecom), and smart home. Gigabit access service is now being developed in many cities in China, for example, China Telecom has launched commercial Gigabit access in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Foshan in January 2016.
The prosperity of "Smart Home" propels the commercialization of Gigabit access. Zhou Jun stated that higher living standards put higher demands on home interconnection and smart livelihood management applications, which are possible on the basis of ultra broadband.
He explained that, "In the upcoming three years, 8K HD video and virtual reality (VR) will become popular. 8K HD video requires about 300 Mbit/s bandwidth and VR requires 1 Gbit/s. These services may seem distant but they linger near. Japan has taken the initiative to commercialize 8K video and planned to live broadcast the Games of the Tokyo Olympic (2020) in 8K, so carriers' pipeline capabilities must be ready before 2020.
Some high-end customers even demand "Smart Home" with Gigabit access right now. For example, HKT (Hong Kong) launched the "Smart Home" service (30,000–100,000 HKD for different service packages) together with the Gigabit access package (5,299 HKD per month). More than 6,000 home users have subscribed to the "Smart Home" service.
Huawei Solution Helps Realize "Smart Home"
China Telecom (Shanghai) has created a showcase demonstrating an authentic "Smart Home" environment", in which Huawei deployed a future-oriented E2E home network solution. The solution includes the MA5800 (an OLT platform with an intelligent next-generation distributed architecture), Gigabit "Smart Home" gateway, 802.11ac dual-frequency Wi-Fi router, and PLC (supporting Wi-Fi repeater).
To support excellent "Smart Home" experience, Huawei thinks the network must provide Gigabit access and full Wi-Fi coverage, and measurable experience. In terms of access network, OLT is the core node that determines the network bandwidth, performance, and end user experience. Huawei MA5800 can support 1–10G ultra-broadband access.
The traditional OLT features a centralized architecture. Zhou Jun compared it to an intersection with traffic lights and pointed out that the OLT control board bottlenecks traffic. Huawei MA5800 with a distributed architecture can forward traffic through all its service boards, provides 200 Gbit/s bandwidth (scalable to 400 Gbit/s in the future) per slot, and processes services in a distributed way. It is like an intersection with elevated highways, which keep traffic unobstructed. Huawei MA5800 is the premium platform for carrying bandwidth –hungry services such as 4K/8K video and VR.
As for home broadband access, users mostly use services on TVs, mobile phones, and pads in rooms with different structures, demanding high-quality Wi-Fi coverage at any corner of their houses. Huawei 802.11ac dual-frequency Wi-Fi routers support 3 x 3 multiple-input multiple-output?(MIMO) under both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies. The rate of their air interfaces can reach 1166–1750 Mbit/s. Furthermore, these routers support beam forming and automatic channel adjustment. With these routers, PLC modems, and Wi-Fi repeaters, Huawei can deliver comprehensive home distributed Gigabit Wi-Fi solutions.
How to assess the quality of videos, VR, and "Smart Home" services are closely related to users' experience, and of vital importance to carriers. There are no recognized video quality evaluation standards in the industry, until Huawei puts forward the H.265 BTV Quality Assessment Model U-vMOS. It gained approval at the ITU-T SG12 meeting held in January 2016 and will be viewed as the basis for the development of H.265 quality assessment model. According to Zhou Jun, the MA5800 uses chips with built-in U-vMOS probes. With these probes, the MA5800 can work with the cloud operating system to score U-vMOS for key nodes, such as the OLT upstream board, PON service board, and ONT on the access network. In this way, carriers can promptly monitor video quality and locate faults, thereby improving user experience and enabling easy and accurate operation and maintenance (O&M). In addition, Huawei is going to develop quality assessment standards for VR and "Smart Home" services.
Huawei partners with carriers to promote normal business circulation
"Smart Home", an emerging industry, not only prompts users to pursuit a smarter and better life, but also brings great opportunities to carriers, device manufacturers, and content providers.
Zhou Jun stressed that Huawei positions itself as an enabler of "Smart Home" and will not tap into any "Smart Home" services. "We will focus on combining strategic advantages, offering open platforms, and improving channel access capabilities to form top-notch experience solutions. We are going to cooperate with carriers to expand the 'Smart Home' industry chains and put 'Smart Home' into commercial use as soon as possible." said him.
He emphasized that carriers have extensive experience in service operation and assessment of end users' experience as well as first-hand feedback from users, which determines their leading position in the "Smart Home" industry chain. Through cooperation with carriers, Huawei can know end users' demands for "Smart Home" and ultra-broadband services and therefore, adjust product and solution policies in time. "The opening of the pilot site is only a start. Based on the pilot site, Huawei will continue to maintain the deep cooperation with China Telecom Shanghai in the ecosphere building and service development of 'Smart Home' and solution innovation."
Actually, early in May 2014, Huawei signed a "Smart Home" network cooperation agreement with China Telecom Shanghai Research Institute to jointly innovate and verify the smart-gateway-oriented home smart interconnection, home smart fault locating and troubleshooting, open smart pipes, smart services, and smart home platforms. At the end of 2015, Huawei helps China Telecom Shanghai put Gigabit broadband into commercial use and initiate the pilot project of Gigabit Wi-Fi home coverage.
In addition, at the first Huawei Developer Conference held in October 2015, Huawei initiated the "OpenLife 'Smart Home' business development plan" together with nearly 20 partners. This plan, designed based on the home broadband market, are intended for business members of the E2E "Smart Home" industry chain, such as APP content developers, individual developers, smart hardware manufacturers, integrated solution provider, and carriers. It offers unified industry standards and aims to provide various practical and convenient "Smart Home" services for users in their daily life.
"Because 'Smart Home' is still in the initial stage, both services and ecosphere environments are immature. We aim to attract more business partners to help carriers aggregate the industrial strength and promote normal business circulation." said Zhou Jun.
Continuous Innovation Leads the Development of Access Network
Up to now, Huawei has ranked the world's No.1 for eight consecutive years in terms of the market share of fixed access services, which largely owes to its active efforts in the area of access technology research and standards for a long period.
According to Zhou Jun, in the access network product line of Huawei, more than 3000 people are engaged in R&D activities of ultra broadband in six R&D centers all over the world. By the end of 2015, 2804 patents has been approved, and the number of international patent applications under PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) has reached 1102. Huawei also takes over a significant position in standard organizations such as ITU-T, IEEE, and BBF, working with its partners to promote the healthy development of the broadband industry.
In the FTTH Council conference this February, Huawei released the first 100G PON prototype of the industry. In the Optical Fiber Conference (OFC) held in March in the United States, Huawei released the first 32-wavelength 10G WDM-PON prototype of the industry, which supports a total bandwidth of 320G on a single fiber. In addition, Huawei launched an innovative scheme about 16-port high-density 10G PON for Chinese market.
Huawei is also a pioneer within its industry in terms of the concept of Gigabit access with any media. In January this year, Huawei, together with TDC, the biggest integrated carrier in Denmark, released the platform of Gigabit access with any media. This platform makes full use of the copper lines, fibers and coaxial resources on the live network to help carriers quickly establish their ultra broadband networks in the Gigabit era with any media. It improves user experience in an overall manner, and realizes the unification of the architecture, software, and management. Besides playing a role as a channel, this platform provides agile maintenance and smart services such as "Smart Home", all-optical campus, U-vMOS video quality monitoring, and virtual access management.