Swiss operator Sunrise and Huawei announced the successful achievement of the first commercial 5G three-dimensional network in Europe.

Using Huawei 5G products and solutions including the simplified macro station, micro station and digital indoor system, the three-layer network architecture is constructed to achieve a full 5G coverage.

Shenzhen-based Huawei has pioneered the development of so-called Massive MIMO - or multiple input and multiple output - antennae that feature arrays of transmitters and receivers to run fifth-generation mobile services. These can achieve ultra-fast data speeds by directly tracking nearby smartphone users, unlike earlier ‘passive’ antennae that communicate in a more general - and less efficient - way with their environment.

A new simplified macro station "Super BladeSite" was introduced, which has contributed to the rapid 5G deployment in the scenario of limited site pole resources. In addition, the portable 5G micro station “Book RRU” enriches 5G site resources with abundant lamp posts, and becomes an essential supplement to macro station.

The first “basic layer” utilizes Sunrise's existing 4G macro sites to realize 5G basic coverage and capacity by using 5G simplified macro stations. Over 300 cities and towns across Switzerland are now covered by Sunrise 5G network.

The second layer, “supplementary experience layer” mainly aims at the edge of the macro site where there is poor coverage or heavy-traffic areas.

Huawei says that using micro stations “Book RRU” installed on lamp posts can meet the requirement of experience consistency. A Book RRU is mini and easy to deploy in multi-scenarios, and it’s an essential supplement to macro site with its high performance.

The third layer “indoor valuable layer” is built for indoor coverage and to deliver better user experience. Sunrise chooses Huawei digital indoor system “LampSite” which is deployed in hotels and pavilions in Zurich and in more than 40 Sunrise shops etc. In the Q4 2019, Sunrise is launching “5G Indoor Coverage as a Service” for business-critical applications, such as automation and monitoring production processes.

In view of the lack of pole resources in Swiss, Huawei simplified site solution plays an important role in accelerating 5G deployment. In the single sector scenario where there is only a single pole, Sunrise and Huawei commercialize Super BladeSite, which includes Blade AAU that is a highly integrated product of active modules & passive antennas, Blade BBU, Blade RRU, Blade Power and Blade Battery.

A Blade AAU combines full-band, multi-system, active & passive modules in one box. A Super AAU is able to run 2/3/4/5G cells on a single pole. Its Highly-compact design enables the compliance of Swiss antenna height limitation. Compared with the typical way of 5G AAU and 2/3/4G antenna separated deployment, adding new poles are not required. It can avoid reconstruction for existing sites. And it is easy to obtain new sites due to simple infrastructure requirement. 90% period of overall 5G site deployment is saved. Pole rental is also significantly saved.

Blade AAU features Huawei’s third generation of Massive MIMO antennae, which doubles bandwidth to 400 Megahertz and boosts power output to 320 Watts, making it possible to expand coverage in the mid-band frequencies that many countries have earmarked for 5G services. The antennae pack 7 nanometre chips.

In addition, a Super BladeSite as a full outdoor equipment eliminates additional power consumption of air conditioning in legacy site room, and reduces carbon emissions.

Sunrise is the largest private telecommunications company in Switzerland with the biggest and most advanced 5G network, offering 5G experience up to 2Gbps.

Huawei has shipped 400,000 base stations this year as operators start to roll out 5G networks around the world. It estimates that 56 carriers have deployed the new networks, of which 40 are now up and running.