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MoreZTE collaborates with Red Hat to quickly deploy diversified/open 5G Networks with Red Hat OpenStack Platform
ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, and enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced that it has extended its collaboration with Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions, in a bid to accelerate the deployment of 5G networks.
The collaboration includes a new reference architecture aimed at enabling telcos to more effectively deploy virtual network functions (VNFs) on Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat’s highly-scalable and agile Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution on ZTE’s hardware.
The collaboration combines the open source innovation available in Red Hat OpenStack Platform with ZTE’s Cloud Core Network components. It offers a replicable and cost-effective network solution that can speed integration time by 5 times based on internal Red Hat testing.
By using Red Hat OpenStack Platform for its VNF services, ZTE can better prepare service
providers for 5G deployments by transforming traditional core data centers (DCs) into more agile, efficient and innovative open environments.
ZTE has completed the VNF certification of Red Hat OpenStack Platform 13 and plans to begin the certification for Red Hat OpenStack Platform 16 this year. ZTE also plans to provide the integrated environment for its VNF services with Red Hat OpenStack Platform in ZTE Cybersecurity Labs in Nanjing and Brussels, in order to showcase the new reference architecture. ZTE Cybersecurity Lab is a center for innovation, and a global resource for customers and partners who want to build NFV/SDN applications and solutions. It offers fully transparent policy allowing customers, regulatory entities and other interested third parties to perform independent security assessments and audits in equipment. The independent source code reviews, document review, black box testing and penetration testing allow customers to verify the security of ZTE’s products, services and processes.
Moreover, as part of this collaboration, Red Hat and ZTE have worked with Vodafone Idea Limited, India’s leading telecom service provider, to deploy its VNF services on Red Hat OpenStack Platform to help deliver its Universal cloud platform.
“The next-generation of mobile networks begins with 5G services running on open source
technologies and innovative hardware, and we are excited to be working with ZTE to help bring these solutions to service providers as fuel for network transformation,” said Joe Fernandes, vice president of Products, Cloud Platforms, Red Hat. “By deploying VNFs on top of Red Hat OpenStack Platform, ZTE is able to drive a more agile, user-friendly environment for operations teams, making it easier to deliver the future of mobile services. We look forward to continuing our work with ZTE in assisting service providers as they migrate to the open hybrid cloud.”
"By adhering to the concept of openness, ZTE has carried out extensive cooperation with mainstream vendors such as Red Hat in various fields including hardware, NFVI and VNF, to provide flexible network construction choices for operators." Chen Xinyu, general manager of ZTE Telecom Cloud & Core Network said, "We plan to continue to work with Red Hat to help global operators build more secure, more open and more cost-effective cloud core networks."
ZTE is a provider of advanced telecommunications systems, mobile devices and enterprise technology solutions to consumers, operators, companies and public sector customers. As a part of ZTE’s strategy, the company is committed to providing customers with integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value as the telecommunications and information technology sectors converge. Listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shenzhen (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), ZTE sells its products and services in more than 160 countries.
To date, ZTE has obtained 46 commercial 5G contracts in major markets, such as Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA). ZTE commits 10 percent of its annual revenues to research and development and takes leadership roles in international standard-setting organizations.
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2020-04-21
ZTE wins the bid for China Mobile's commercial 5G SA core network
14 April 2020, Shenzhen, China - ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today has secured the bid in the commercial 5G SA core network in China Mobile’s 2020 centralized procurement of new 5G SA core network equipment.
For the public-oriented network, ZTE has won the bid of 12 provinces in six regions, and secured the bid for 35% shares in 31 provinces in China for the industry-oriented network. This well demonstrates the company's industry-leading strength in the 5G SA core network.
Once completed, the project will become the world's largest 5G SA network.
China Mobile’s 5G SA core network project this time employs ZTE’s Common Core solution, which features SBA, microservice components, stateless design and network slicing to implement flexible and agile service innovation, deployment and O&M. ZTE’s Common Core solution can well satisfy the full access and full integration requirements of 2G/3G/4G/5G/fixed simultaneously.
By virtue of ZTE’s Common Core solution, resources can be reused and the target architecture can be achieved in one step, thereby avoiding multiple network upgrades and reconstruction while reaching the 5G target network directly and saving the investment cost.
In addition, to meet automatic and intelligent requirements of the 5G network, ZTE also brings its CloudStudio intelligent O&M solution to support one-click service provisioning and deployment through automatic tools, so that new services can be launched quickly. Meanwhile, AI, machine learning, and root cause analysis (RCA) are introduced to implement real-time network monitoring, real-time analysis, automatic optimization, and fault self-healing so as to improve the O&M efficiency.
ZTE is a provider of advanced telecommunications systems, mobile devices and enterprise technology solutions to consumers, operators, companies and public sector customers. As a part of ZTE’s strategy, the company is committed to providing customers with integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value as the telecommunications and information technology sectors converge. Listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shenzhen (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), ZTE sells its products and services in more than 160 countries.
To date, ZTE has obtained 46 commercial 5G contracts in major markets, such as Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA). ZTE commits 10 percent of its annual revenues to research and development and takes leadership roles in international standard development organizations.
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2020-04-13
Xinfengming Group Seizes the Opportunities to Become the Most Professional Fiber Supplier in the 5G Era
2 April 2020, Shenzhen, China - ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced that when Xinfengming Group was mentioned, the first thought would be the "chemical fiber giant" in China. Now, when you mention the Xinfengming Group, you will come up with a new image: the leader in the application of 5G technologies in industrial enterprises.
Many people may wonder why it is Xinfengming Group and how it became the forefront of 5G technology applications.
For a city, to promote high-quality development, hard decisions have to be made from time to time, which may also happens to an enterprise. Only who making hard decisions to grasp the most important opportunities can standing in an invincible position. Nowadays, the 5G era is one of those key opportunities breeze that cannot be missed. Xinfengming Group has a strong sense of urgency: "If you miss an opportunity, you may lag behind an era," so it is adapting to the 5G era to seize the major opportunities in the 5G era. Keeping that in mind, the Group decides to become the leader in 5G technology applications as well as the most professional fiber supplier in the world.
Smart 5G Workshop wins the first prize in the National 5G Application Competition in China
Rows of chemical fibers are produced orderly from the production line. As the carrying robots run back and forth, all the production scenes are synchronously transmitted to the industrial Internet platform in a form of ultra-HD images. In addition, centralized management and control, operation dispatching and expert processing of the whole Group's equipment production hence, the above mentioned is a vivid scene that the author sees in the filament production workshop of "5G Smart Factory" of Xinfengming Group.
As the first 5G industrial Internet application company in Jiaxing, Xinfengming Group has achieved full coverage of 5G network and carried out applications in mobile office, video communication, data collection, and many other fields. This year, Xinfengming Group carried out the 5G intelligent to upgrade the silk production workshop, and empowered the IGV (Intelligent Guided Vehicle) trolley in the workshop. Through the ultra-low latency and zero dead angle coverage of 5G network, the IGV trolley can therefore implement real-time communication on the 5G network. With the AI automatic driving technology, the flexible real-time change of the transportation speed and the flexible on-demand adjustment of the transportation route will greatly improve the working traffic in the workshop. In addition, the ultra-large capacity and ultra-high rate of 5G network can greatly increase the maximum number of connected industrial robots, and implement 8K HD video surveillance on workshops. This solution solves the problems of slow transportation, fixed transportation routes, small operating traffic, and many Wi-Fi-covered blind areas, greatly improving the management level and production efficiency of enterprise workshops.
"At present, we have achieved the full coverage of 5G signals in our marketing center, headquarters, offices, and other key fields, greatly improving the speed of accessing the "Feng Platform" and the speed of responding to the market and making decisions. In addition, the Group has already implemented 5G video communication in the factory, and has the basis of more data collection points. It is estimated that the number of future data collection sites will achieve 210,000." According to Wang Huicheng, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Group. In the near future, relying on the features of high speed, low latency and large bandwidth of 5G network, Xinfengming Group will further improve the networking capability of 5G applications, and realize integrated communication of wide coverage, deep coverage and digital collection in the whole plant. In addition, relying on the capabilities of high-speed holographic perception and ubiquitous connections of 5G, Xinfengming will achieve working coordination, man-machine coordination, remote maintenance, and flexible production, improving core competitiveness.
On October 16, 2019, the final of the Second "Blooming Cup" 5G Application Competition was held in Hangzhou. Ten projects have won the first prize in this competition. "5G Smart Workshop" jointly constructed by Xinfengming Group and Jiaxing Mobile has won the first prize for the second round of "Blooming Cup" 5G Application Soliciting Competition. It is understood that this competition is jointly organized by the China Information and Communications Research Institute, the IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group and the China Communication Standardization Association under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The competition will solicit a wide range of 5G application and innovation cases from the whole society to give full play to the industry needs and the role of enterprise innovation main body and facilitate the commercial process of 5G.
"As a leader in the chemical fiber industry, Xinfengming Group has the duty to innovate and shape a new "smart + chemical fiber" industry model, to lead high-quality development in the industry and help build a strong chemical fiber country." How to take the future road to high-quality development? It is to expand industrial Internet applications and make industrial production more intelligent. The faith of Xinfengming Group is very strong.
To meet the new requirements of new tasks in the new era, on the basis of the original five strategies of Fort, Talent, Brand, Innovation and Sharing, Xinfengming has added and established an information-based strategy that focuses on industrial Internet and builds smart enterprises, and serves as a core driving force to promote the Group's high-quality development. They are striving to promote 5G informatization transformation and upgrade in traditional factories. They have applied the 5G network slicing technology in the construction of a new factory, and promoted the high-quality development of the industrial Internet by focusing on 5G applications. Based on the 5G ubiquitous and seamless connectivity capability, the O&M efficiency of the group is improved again.
In addition, Xinfengming has built an industrial Internet platform that integrates main data, real-time data, ERP, MES, big data, decision-making assistance, and industrial APPs. By relying on the platform, the Group can achieve internal and external interconnection and interworking, build up the all-in-one service chain, data chain, and decision-making chain of the group, and realize the applications of the group such as intelligent+ office, production, operation, energy, sales, and decision-making. According to the strategic plan formulated by Xinfengming, it takes about five years to build four platforms and smart factories with industrial Internet as the main line, build an information standard system and an information security system, and establish a set of information management and control mechanism. By the end of 2025, Xinfengming will build an all-round smart factory to create a first-class information industry and support the achievement of the strategic objective of "the most professional fiber supplier."
Only by attaching great importance to talents can we lead an enterprise in a stable and far-reaching way. By the end of December last year, the award ceremony for the Chief Scientist was held at Xinfengming Group. The Xinfengming Group officially hired the founder of asymmetric catalysis and "Click Chemistry," Nobel laureate in chemistry, the National Academy of Sciences (2001), member of National Academy of Sciences, USA, Prof. Barry Sharpless as the chief scientist, and the Nobel Prize academy was unveiled and settled in Xinfengming Group. With this cooperation, Professor Barry and his team will use the "Click Chemistry" concept together with the R&D team of Xinfengming Group to launch basic research in the chemical fiber field, to jointly solve the common difficulties in the chemical fiber industry and promote the high-quality development of Xinfengming Group.
Looking forward to the future, Xinfengming Group will keep up with the trend of the times and steadfastly act as a leader in 5G technology applications to promote the development of the chemical fiber industry towards green, low-carbon, digital, intelligent, and flexible quality, and make greater contributions to the progress of the chemical fiber industry.
About ZTE
ZTE is a provider of advanced telecommunications systems, mobile devices, and enterprise technology solutions to consumers, carriers, companies and public sector customers. As part of ZTE’s strategy, the company is committed to providing customers with integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value as the telecommunications and information technology sectors converge. Listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shenzhen (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), ZTE’s products and services are sold to over 500 operators in more than 160 countries. ZTE commits 10 per cent of its annual revenue to research and development and has leadership roles in international standard-setting organizations. ZTE is committed to corporate social responsibility and is a member of the UN Global Compact. For more information, please visit www.zte.com.cn.
Know more about SDN/NFV: sdnfv.zte.com.cn, www.openlab.zte.com.cn
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2020-04-12
ZTE assists China Mobile to send China’s first 5G message
ZTE Corporation , a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today has helped the Zhejiang branch of China Mobile send China’s first 5G message based on GSMA UP2.4 standard in Hangzhou, China, thereby making China Mobile the first Chinese operator to implement the 5G Message Center (5GMC).
It is expected that China Mobile’s 5G message will enter into commercial use by the end of June 2020, which represents a formal countdown to the commercial use of 5G messages in China.
This first 5G message has realized the interconnection between the 5G message system and Chatbot or the existing network equipment, implementing point-to-point transmission of rich media messages such as pictures, videos, locations and files.
The communication between the terminal and the new-generation industrial application Chatbot is implemented by leveraging the MAAP platform, thereby greatly improving the multimedia service experience of terminal users and accelerating the commercial use of 5G messages.
The Zhejiang Branch of China Mobile is the first pilot unit of China Mobile's 5G messages. Its 5GMC system, which is constructed by ZTE, employs a full cloud-based NFV architecture and a built-in lightweight solution.
In addition to the downward compatibility with 2G/3G/4G short messages, the 5GMC system also provides brand-new 5G messaging services, which feature enhanced messages and business messages, and short message upgrade to rich media messages, card messages, and Chatbot applications.
As a consequence, 5G terminal users and industry users can experience one-stop services, such as search, dialogue, interaction and payment in the message window, without the need to install any APP, thereby directly accessing the applications of the operators and third parties.
ZTE has been committed to China Mobile's 5G messaging services for a long time. As a world-leading messaging service provider, ZTE has been working closely with China Mobile to guide and promote the establishment of international 5G messaging standards. For instance, ZTE has assisted China Mobile to complete the GSMA UP certification for the first time in the world, and organized the 5G message interworking test for the three major Chinese operators, thereby laying a solid foundation for the development of 5G messages.
ZTE is a provider of advanced telecommunications systems, mobile devices and enterprise technology solutions to consumers, operators, companies and public sector customers. As a part of ZTE’s strategy, the company is committed to providing customers with integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value as the telecommunications and information technology sectors converge. Listed in the stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shenzhen , ZTE sells its products and services in more than 160 countries.
To date, ZTE has obtained 46 commercial 5G contracts in major markets, such as Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa (MEA). ZTE commits 10 percent of its annual revenues to research and development and takes leadership roles in international standard development organizations.
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2020-04-08
ZTE says end-to-end network slicing is crucial in the 5G era
End-to-end network slicing is key to enable net neutrality in the 5G era, according to Chinese telecom vendor ZTE.
ZTE proposes that operators can use the technology of network slicing to work as virtual private network for different types of terminals. In one network slicing, net neutrality access policy can be adopted for the same type of terminals. However, operators can use a predefined policy to dynamically adjust the resource allocation between network slices for different type of terminals, so as to ensure those terminals for public interest or human beings can have priority network access in case of network congestion.
“5G end-to-end network slicing integrates SDN/NFV, Cloud, Orchestration and related technologies to help enterprises of different types and sizes to have their own Service-Level Agreement (SLA) guaranteed Virtualized Private Network (VPN)/slice at an affordable price,” said Jiashun Tu, principal scientist of NFV/SDN, ZTE.
In the past, the only way for the enterprises to have a private mobile network was to build a physical network and setup a professional network operation team. “Only the super large enterprises, army and government could afford to build such a private mobile network,” said Jiashun Tu. “On the other hand, due to the regulation of frequency, normally such a physical mobile network has to be a national wide network, which is not suitable for some regional and small-scale enterprises. 5G end-to-end network slicing will meet the demand for private networks, meanwhile bring more competitiveness to thousands of 5G services because of more affordable costs and better end-to-end user experience.”
The executive also highlighted that Network Slicing provides a way to divide a physical network into multiple virtual networks with different SLA. Operators can adjust the dynamic resource proportion of different network slice to define the SLA dynamically. In fact, this provides SLA for users in different network slice, which is contrary to the existing net neutrality principle. But such a dynamically adjusted classified net neutrality principle will actually better promote network equality and improve the utilization efficiency of frequency resources, when the network transforms to ubiquitous 5G network with hundreds of millions of human, robots and IoT terminals.
Although 5G claims to provide ten times network performance compared with 4G, 5G will still have to face the scene of resource conflict due to the access of more terminals of IoT. Some typical 5G applications, such as industrial control, autonomous driving and telesurgery, need absolute SLA assurance from the network, otherwise it will bring huge economic losses and even casualties. While other typical 5G applications, such as online video, do not have too many requirements for reliability, but are more sensitive to the economy of network services.Thus, the traditional sense of network neutrality needs to be extended to adapt to the new 5G scenario. With the development of 5G network, the limitation of resource such as frequency, transmission and base station site space for tens of billions of things and human will lead to the bottleneck of the development of human society. So the only solution is to use 5G network slicing as VPN with high resource utilization to replace the physical private network gradually.It is the best solution to give as many resources as possible for the operator to run a public telco network, and then use network slicing technology to provide VPN for different 5G services
ZTE also highlighted that cloud capabilities closer to the end user can provide a faster response to the service. “Usually, automatic control service, autonomous driving requires a low-latency and reliable network (uRLLC). Compared with the normal central cloud, MEC avoids transmitting a large amount of information to the central cloud. First, this saves backhaul resources,” Jiashun Tu said. “Secondly, it avoids security risks caused by long-distance multi-hop transmission. Thirdly, the reduction of processing points is also conducive to improving reliability,” the executive added.
For 5G, cloud technology and virtualization technology have completely changed the core network. Virtualization technology makes the core network more flexible and economical. Compared with 4G, 5G requires more sites and more flexible network access modes. Therefore, virtualization of RAN is also a trend. Currently, the CU defined by 3GPP can be a virtualized network element. MEC will be a platform to support the smooth evolution of virtualized RAN. It can be imagined that in the future, with the popularization of MEC, it will form a ubiquitous cloud infrastructure together with centre cloud, and 5G itself will evolve into an application on this ubiquitous cloud.
ZTE also explained the concept of Cloudify 5G and what are the main benefits of this this for telecom operators. Cloudify 5G is composed of a virtualized core network, SDN (Software Defined Network) transmission, and virtualized RAN. At present, the core network already supports softwarization, the transmission network also supports software definition, and the new introduced MEC needs to support future RAN evolution. “When the RAN evolves into a virtualized RAN on the MEC platform in the future, Cloudify 5G will become a typical service and capability on the cloud (PaaS and SaaS). Operators will realize the transformation from a communication service provider (CSP) to a digital service provider (DSP). The challenge is that existing cloud providers are also transitioning in this direction through another path (adding 5G to their existing clouds).
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2020-03-24
ZTE's 5G Common Core Powers Value Creation With Next-Generation Network Solutions
2020 is likely to see the first commercial launch of the standalone mode 5G networks. A key differentiator from the 5G we have seen so far is the next generation core.
In the following interview, Weibin Wang, CTO of ZTE Telecom Cloud and Core Network, discusses why it is not only desirable but also critical for the industry to start the migration journey to next generation 5G core. He also shares his views on the benefits we can expect from the new core networks with real-life use cases.
Q: Most operators are running networks with equipment and technologies from multiple generations. The first 5G services have been launched in non-standalone mode, on top of 4G enhanced packet core (EPC). We are going to see standalone mode 5G going live this year, on next generation 5G core. Does it mean the networks will become more complex, and we are getting further away from achieving a common core?
Weibin Wang:
From 3GPP standard point of view, the answer is “Yes”. If you look back to the history of mobile network evolution, evolution of core network has existed for a long time from 3G PS core to the 4G EPC, now to the 5GC.
For most operator multiple access type is necessary for different purposes and different types of subscribers, which require the core part should also provide all access capability. But, this does not mean the networks deployed by operators have to become more and more complex. This is exactly one of the main drivers of introducing common core by operators. With a common core supporting all accesses, the operators could still keep the commercial core network in the simple way even migrating to the next generation 5G core. This is the same way as the industry has done when migrating from 3G to 4G EPC by using the new common core to swap the older one with limited capabilities.
As for ZTE, the 5G Service-Based Architecture (SBA) Common core solution has not only commercially deployed as vEPC+ for global operators including China Mobile, China UNICOM, H3G and Vodafone, but also deployed and been verified by operators like Orange as common core for both 4G and 5G SA networks.
Q: In addition to serving converged access, what other benefits do we expect to get from 5G common core that LTE EPC cannot deliver?
Weibin Wang:
Since 2019, the industry has started to get a consensus that only SA 5G with SBA 5GC is the real 5G because of the following benefits, which EPC cannot deliver:
On demanding flexible & scalable Network Slicing capability in real time based on different QoS (specially the latency), security and capacity etc. for different services and customers.
Cloud native by nature, which could give the operators the capability to provide the customer-required service with the most efficient resource and guarantee the speed of responding to new business chance with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).
Seamless integration with mobile edge computing (MEC): Define standard features and procedure to support MEC with service continuity and local break out for lower latency or dedicated security required.
Ultra-reliability like dual link and ultra-security like blockchain enhancement to support critical use cases in the society.
Seamless integration with big data and AI driven automation: With all network data available, the standard Network Data Analytics Function (NWDAF) lays the foundation for AI based automation for maintenance and optimization.
All capability open by API via Network Exposure Function (NEF) for 3rd parties.
With all these new capabilities enabled by 5G common core, the real 5G is not only a “new network” for the mass market, but also a “new platform” with customized cloud services, networking services and open API service to any kind of 3rd party customers for business innovation.
With all these innovations available with ZTE’s 5G Common core solution, ZTE’s common core is awarded as “Best New Cloud-Native VNF” and “5G Excellence” at the recent SDN NFV World Congress.
Q: Similar to other technology upgrades, migrating to 5G common core has big CAPEX implications. What new business opportunities can 5G core open for telecom operators, to justify the additional investment?
Weibin Wang:
Considering the possible additional CAPEX for migrating to 5G common core, several possible ways are chosen to balance the possible additional investment:
Using the CAPEX planned for existing EPC expansion: With 5G and common core introduced, more and more traffic will be migrated to the new network, expansion on legacy core is kind of waste from future point of view. So, most operators are prioritizing the commercialization of the new 5G common core over the expansion of the current EPC.
Saving OPEX: to phase out legacy EPC step by step to save additional cost for maintenance.
Reusing existing infrastructure: the 5G core should be cloud based from day one. Reusing the existing Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure and Virtualized Infrastructure Manager (NFVI/VIM) is considered mandatory by every operator to save cost and time.
With those methods, the CAPEX on new 5G core is not an unsurmountable barrier, especially compared with the investment need for updating the Radio part of the network.
Using the new capabilities provided by SA 5G core as a new platform for business innovations, 5G networks could open many new business chances for different type of customers, especially the business customers:
To public-sector customers:
Value added user experience for specific services by network slicing with defined QoS.
To business customers:
Content acceleration and cloud service by network slicing and MEC;
Network capabilities open service via open API
To industry verticals:
On-demand network slicing services for factory, critical industry etc.
Here are some concrete user cases from the co-operation between China Mobile (CMCC), ZTE, and third party partners in different sectors:
As a leader of 5G, ZTE has co-operated with over 70 global operators on 5G networks, focusing on new business innovations.
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2020-03-12
