ZTE proposes integrated end-to-end solutions and project financing for towercos

Headquartered in Shenzhen, China, ZTE has branches in over 100 countries and is one of the world’s leading telecommunications and IT providers. Its Infrastructure Auxiliary Product (IAP) Department offers a comprehensive suite of products and services for the tower industry. Since 2005, ZTE IAP has constructed more than 50,000 towers and 20,000 shelters around the world. As a turnkey solutions provider, IAP helps MNO and towerco clients optimise project success from beginning to end, from quality tower designs to well-managed construction to opex reduction.

TowerXchange: Please tell us about ZTE in general and your specific department.

ZTE Corporation is a global leader in telecommunications and information technology. As part of ZTE’s mobile information communication technologies (M-ICT) strategy, the company is committed to providing integrated end-to-end innovations to deliver excellence and value to consumers, carriers, businesses and public sector customers around the world to enable increased connectivity and productivity.

ZTE Infrastructure Auxiliary Product Department (ZTE IAP) specialises in infrastructure product and solution R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and engineering services for ICT networks. Through close cooperation with our customers, we are well experienced in product design and project implementation, including offering rapid customised solutions to satisfy a customer’s special requirements.

TowerXchange: Where do you fit in the telecom infrastructure ecosystem? 

ZTE IAP is committed to being the leading product and solutions supplier of ICT network infrastructure in the international market. Our product scope includes a full comprehensive series of towers, shelters, air conditioners, and accessories. We also offer tower construction, design consultation, tower reinforcement, site temperature control solutions, O&M, et cetera.

Generally, we focus on MNO and towerco clients, while exploring the government and enterprise markets as well.

TowerXchange: Can you tell us about your international footprint?

ZTE IAP has business relationships with more than 500 MNOs in 160 countries, mainly across Asia, Africa, and South America.

TowerXchange: Can you share some sample projects with us so we get a sense of your scope of work and capabilities?

In total, more than 50,000 towers and 20,000 shelters around the world have been constructed by ZTE IAP since 2005.

For example, we started working with Ethio Telecom (Ethiopia) in 2007, with 3,000+ towers to date and 1,500 of them built within the first year. It was a great achievement to help deliver mobile network coverage throughout the country for the first time. All the towers are still working well.

In Myanmar, we’ve put up more than 1,000 towers for KDDI. With this project, it is worth mentioning that our R&D team needed only 30 days to complete 15 different kinds of custom towers’ calculation and design, and these all passed a site audit conducted by our Japanese customers in one go. We started this in 2014.

On 8 October, 2010, ZTE’s blue flags were raised on the tower top, as part of our project to help NCELL install the first 3G base station at the base camp of Mount Everest (at an altitude of 5,180 meters), giving visitors, climbers, and people living in the Khumbu Valley the ability to make calls and wirelessly connect to the Internet. “You are on the peak of the world”, said NCELL CTO.

TowerXchange: How should MNOs and towercos strike a balance between the cost and volume benefits of standardisation versus the needs to customise structures for different environments and wind loading?

In our opinion, it is better for towercos to launch a series of standardised products to meet the most common requirements. For the rest of special requirements, MNOs can then address them case-by-case, for which we are able to provide customised solutions quickly.

TowerXchange: What are the most economical ways to strengthen a tower structure to accommodate more tenants and more wind load than it was originally designed to accommodate?

According to our studies, the most economical way to reinforce a tower structure is to consider the factors at the beginning of the design, then you can pay just a bit more to fulfill reinforced requirements from the customer. Of course, ZTE IAP has developed a range of upgradable towers for customers to choose from if needed.

TowerXchange: How do you design a tower to be more easily upgraded for multiple tenants?

ZTE is the major telecom equipment supplier. Based on our understanding of wireless communications technology development, for the new site, we will set aside optimised expansion space to meet the needs of multiple tenants.

As for transforming the site, we would provide reform measures such as increasing the bracket, replacing the antenna, reducing the tower height, and strengthening the tower, to make the tower meet the demands of multiple tenants.

TowerXchange: How do you ensure the deliverability and easy installation of your structures?

ZTE IAP has been servicing the overseas market for over ten years and accumulated a lot of product delivery and installation experience along the way. We’ve documented all this and translated our learnings into standard procedures, foolproof checklists, and training materials.

We also consider logistics and installation from the beginning of the tower design stage. For example, our design rule defines that all members’ length should be less than 5.6m for convenient transportation and installation; there should be less than four bolt types in each tower; only choose simple cross sections to reduce the number of members; optimise the packing method to make it visual and countable, et cetera.

Through the above measures, we can ensure transportation safety and the installation efficiency.

TowerXchange: How do you help your clients reduce opex?

From the perspective of customers, we like to introduce new technology and continuous innovation.

For example, in order to reduce opex of the tower, we developed a tower online monitoring system which provides information in real-time on things such as deflection angle, foundation settlement, and external invasion. It also has the ability to collect other data around the site such as wind speed, temperature, humidity, and air quality. This is integrated with our O&M system, which will issue alerts accordingly, so staff are deployed to the site only when necessary. This helps with resource optimisation.

In order to reduce the opex of shelter, we developed a new type of energy-saving air conditioner which can reduce energy consumption by more than 20% compared to the traditional air conditioner.

TowerXchange: What innovations in foundation materials and design can be leveraged to accelerate time to market, reduce costs and improve the re-usability of towers?

It is well known that foundation construction takes the most time in the tower construction process, and the foundation is not reusable.

For a quick construction site, we developed the precast foundation which can be concreted in the factory with reliable quality. It can reduce the period of tower construction significantly.  For remote sites with difficult transportation, we developed the counter weight foundation which uses local materials (sand or macadam, et cetera) to complete the foundation construction.

TowerXchange: When it comes to your workforce for overseas projects, what’s the split between ZTE headquarter staff, ZTE local staff, and use of local contractors? How do you ensure quality and safety standards?

In general, employees from headquarters are responsible for the overall guidance and professional technical support; local staff are responsible for project management and quality control; and the subcontractor is responsible for the project implementation.

When it comes to quality and safety standards, firstly, we have strict end-to-end project management system that covers R&D, manufacturing, logistics, and installation. Each process has its own quality management system to ensure execution compliance.

Secondly, we have professional technical staff with certification to conduct on-site guidance.

Thirdly, we have real-time audit and strict process and final acceptance check to ensure the quality and safety will meet our customers’ requirements.

TowerXchange: How would you differentiate your solutions from your competitors? 

Firstly, we can provide end-to-end service from R&D, manufacturing, to engineering and consulting services. We also have mature QMS to ensure the stability of product and delivery.

Secondly, all members of our R&D team have a master’s degree and more than ten years of design experience. We have established a complete product series including self-support tower, guyed mast, rooftop pole, monopole, camouflage tower, et cetera, as well as shelter product series and air conditioner product series.

Thirdly, we are familiar with the mainstream design standards across different markets, such as in China, the U.S., UK, Europe, South Africa, India, et cetera, that helps us to satisfy various customised requirements from customers all over the world.

Fourth, we are able to leverage Chinese mass production capability and low labour costs.

Fifth, ZTE is the one of the few suppliers who can execute global projects (we have branches across more than 107 countries) and project financing.