At 17 o'clock on 19 July 2006, more than 40 media gathered in New Otani Hotel Tokyo. eMobile, an innovative mobile network operator of Japan, announced to select Huawei as its 3G equipment provider to deploy Japan's first-ever All IP-based HSDPA radio access network initially starting in several larger metropolitan areas such as Sendai and Sapporo, and will support the roll out of eMobile's nationwide UMTS/HSDPA network in the upcoming years.

In Japan, eMobile is the only operator who acquired new 3G license in 2005. This network has caught a lot of attention from many global 3G equipment suppliers from the very beginning.

The strictest 3G market for equipment vendors

The carefulness and delicateness of Japanese people are widely renowned in the world, which is well represented on the requirements on time. In Japan, the arrival and departure time of new trunk railway will not error over 3 seconds than scheduled. Each cellphone receives signals from the air to check time with the accuracy to second.

Japan, one of the 3G cradles in the world, has a substantial 3G subscriber base over 50 million which is around half of the global 3G subscriber number. Usually in underground train, there must be 1/3 passengers are watching cellphones except the other 2/3 are resting and reading. Thanks to its early rollout of 3G services, Japan is far advanced than other countries in terms of the 3G application.

In Japan, cellphone can be used as credit card with special chipset plug in, or to punch in and out and read barcode. Together with a sensor, environment monitoring can be realized over cellphone; moreover, the cellphone can act as a robot controller to command the moving directions and gestures of household robot.

As a new 3G operator, eMobile more concentrates on high standards because only high-quality bearer network can ensure eMobile's 3G service a success. In July 2005, eMobile delivered invitation letters of HSDPA to 5 3G equipment suppliers. After complicated technical evaluation, three vendors including Huawei entered the second round. Afterwards, eMobile arranged field test and third-party test for the vendors in shortlist to detect the equipment 's performance and reliability.

Huawei's Node Bs are placed in Sapporo and Osaka to conduct field test. Sapporo is Japan's northmost big city, where average temperature in winter is minus 15 degrees centigrade. Since Osaka is near the seaside with strong winds all the year round, it is the city in Japan with the highest moisture. Under these environments, Huawei's UMTS new generation Node Bs work stably for half a year and the RF inspecting results also tell this fact: the RF performance keeps stable. In addition, eMobile entrusts a professional institute in Yokohama to conduct a test under extreme temperatures and moistures. This third-party organization used tailored devices to carry out the complicated testing and give a result that: Huawei's 3G Node B has a nice performance in stability and reliability, deserving to be trusted.

"Equipment's passing reliability test is only the initial step," said Zhai Yadong, the head of Huawei UMTS technical sales Japan, "what eMobile really needs is a strategic partner in mobile broadbandization age. To meet the requirements, this 3G supplier must be able to provide innovative HSDPA solution, quickly respond to the requests and has perfect local service and technical support ability in Japan."

Japan's first IP-based HSDPA network

eMobile is the mobile subsidiary of eAccess, the leading broadband operator in Japan which obtained millions of ADSL subscribers already in the nation. As an operator with new license, eMobile expects to make full use of the existing network resource of eAccess in the deployment of HSDPA.

HSDPA network supports data service rate up to 14.4 Mbps and HSDPA service erects a high requirement on the transmission bandwidth. 7 E1s are needed in a cell when supposed allocating TDM transmission resources with the highest bandwidth. The adoption of IP transmission can curtail transmission cost by 80%. Since the transmission cost accounts for a big portion of the daily operation capital, the efficient curtail of transmission cost provides conditions for HSDPA service popularity.

Huawei firstly launched hybrid IP transmission solution in the end-2005. The principle is to bear high-QoS service over TDM E1 and low-QoS service including HSDPA over IP transmission.

"Huawei's IP transmission solution has got the approval from technical department of eMobile in the first round discussion", continued Qiu Heng, member of Japan regional department Huawei, "eMobile commented on Huawei that: All IP transmission solution is much complied with eMobile's network features."

Since eAccess is rich in IP transmission resource and capable to provide dedicated IP line with QoS assurance, after explicit reasoning and testing, Huawei offered eMobile customized All IP transmission solution.

According to eMobile's technical department, the adoption of IP transmission to bear HSDPA service not only saves transmission resources, but also reuses eAccess' IP backbone, reducing the construction and maintenance cost of network to a large extent.

The IP-based HSDPA solution enables eMobile have a new perception about Huawei's innovation ability. However, Huawei is not only innovative in IP transmission. In 3G Node B, Huawei offers small-size and light-most Node B which can be lifted by a person to the site, and since crane is no longer a must, the construction period is shortened and cost is reduced; Huawei's new generation UMTS Node B supports full performance HSDPA and is strong in service bearer; Huawei's highly-efficient digtal power amplifier helps a 30% saving in power consumption compared with the conventional base stations. One after another innovative solutions give eMobile a better understanding about Huawei's world's leading R&D capability.

Focusing on customer requirements to make innovations is Huawei's long-term based principle. The innovative solution offers eMobile distinguished advantages in the network deployment. eMobile is being more and more satisfied with its own choice: Huawei.

Professional network planning and optimization (P&O) team

Japan is a densely populated country with many big cities including 12 metropolitans with population over million and more than 70 middle-sized cities, forming multiple city belts.

"The railway transportation is comparatively compressed since the ferry quantity of new trunk line, JR and metro are very heavy. The density of population makes you have to consider more about the coverage on transportation trunk lines. In Japan, buildings usually have thick walls to prevent earthquakes, while this makes the shrink from the walls is definitely more than the average. "continued Huang Simin, member of the Japan network P&O team of Huawei," Huawei's network P&O team has successfully deployed and optimized more than 20 UMTS/HSDPA commercial networks including PCCE/SUNDY of Hong Kong, TM of Malaysia, Optimus of Portugal etc., accumulating rich experience on it.

Huawei sets up a prime project team responsible for the network planning in Japan with members from multiple countries. Currently, network planning engineers from Japan have accounted for 1/4 and mainly take charge of the analysis and auditing of the environment and legislation of the network deployment area. The local network P&O personnel will take up more than half of the total with the development of networks.

"The feature of Huawei network planning lies in its efficient tools," Huang Simin explained, "our tools can help to find out all the possible sites around a certain area, then engineering company negotiate on them according to priority, and make plans according to areas."

Based on the principle of persistent investments in Japan markets and open collaboration, Huawei has established its own technical support centre, training center and lab within a short time, while building partnership with capable engineering company including Todentsu Corporation and OKI who both have decades' professional construction experience and teams in Japan telecom field.

Huawei's innovative solutions, rich experience and capable local partners of engineering are three key elements that decide the choice of eMobile.

Huawei wireless products and solutions are currently serving 170 million mobile subscribers in the world and make Huawei become the main mobile equipment supplier of Vodafone, Orange, KPN, Telefonica, China Mobile, China Unicom, MTN and MTS etc. 23 out of the world's top 50 mobile operators have become the customers of Huawei wireless. Huawei has won 31 UMTS/HSDPA commercial contracts. According to Frost & Sullivan, Huawei was ranked No. 2 in the globe in terms of the newly-won WCDMA contracts since 2005.

There are currently more than 8,000 Huawei engineers involved in the R&D of 3G solutions. As everyone knows that Europe and Japan are resource places of WCDMA/3G, so very few multinational 3G equipment vendors have had their equipment commercially deployed in Japan markets. While, Huawei's wide acceptance and reputation among the cutting-edge operators and high-end markets indicate that Huawei 3G has elevated to a new stage at all levels.