Huawei Technologies launched its Indoor Coverage Digitalization Business Solution at the company’s annual Operations Transformation Forum in Hong Kong last week. The solution is designed to help mobile operators overcome key challenges of delivering reliable indoor coverage and enable them to offer value added services.
Zheng Ruguo (pictured), CMO of Huawei Global Technical Services, said at a media briefing that mobile operators have been long struggling with challenges in providing indoor mobile coverage. These include a long return on investment (ROI) period and difficult site access, which results in indoor sites cannot be constructed at the planned locations.
The new solution can help mobile operators deliver better indoor coverage and monetize their deployments across stadiums, campuses, transportation hubs and residential areas.
Zheng said a key element of the Huawei’s indoor solution is the Indoor Easy Pole, a portable pedestal-like site which comes with small cells, phone charging and a billboard.
Indoor challenges in data-driven era
Mobile data traffic is expected to increase at an annual compound rate of 49%, and more than 70% of the data traffic will take place indoors, according to statistics by the latest GSMA Mobile Economy report.
Zheng said delivering high quality indoor coverage is becoming increasingly important for operators nowadays especially when such data-driven applications as online streaming, online games, and AR/VR are booming. This also places higher requirements on indoor networks.
With Huawei’s solution, the executive added, mobile operators not only could ensure high-quality indoor mobile broadband services but also maximize indoor network value and increase revenues by offering digital value-added services in various indoor areas ranging from shopping malls, airports, campuses, stadiums and residential areas.
Proven use-cases in China and Panama
Zheng said Huawei’s solution has been deployed by mobile operators in countries like Australia, China, and Panama.
It helps operators to identify valuable hotspots and calculate the potential return on investment from a deployment. The hotspot identification accuracy reached 85%, and the ROI period has been reduced to three-and-a-half year on average, the executive said.
In a project conducted for Cable and Wireless Panama (CWP), which deployed the Indoor Easy Pole in a Panama immigration office, site access costs were decreased to zero, and easy installation, simple operation and maintenance, and fast deployment were realized, contributing to significant TCO savings.
In China, China Mobile has deployed Huawie’s solution in the Wuxi Costal Mall, located in the Binhu district of Wuxi city in Jiangsu province, to boost mobile data traffic and offer new value services to its customers.
Zheng said China Mobile has also provided big data-based business services like customer flow analysis, user profiling, and business insights to the shopping center.
The operator also uses the insights generated through the solution to develop shopping navigation and smart parking services for its customers.
With shopping experience being significantly improved, the customer flow of the shopping mall increased by 40% in half of a year. China Mobile also benefited from free site access, increased mobile data traffic and revenues by offering value added services. More significantly, China Mobile achieved ROI in three years.
Zheng said the project with China Mobile is still ongoing and the operator is planning to introduce new services like AR/VR in future.
Looking forward, Huawei is planning to increase its investment in researching and developing new indoor coverage solutions over the next five years. The company has also been working with operators and industry partners to explore new business models and joint technical innovations, Zheng said.