TowerXchange interview with Wei Tian, Solution Planning Director, ZTE
TowerXchange: Please introduce yourself and ZTE to our audience and outline how you service and support tower.
Wei Tian: Hello everyone, I’m William Tian, solution planning director from ZTE digital energy. ZTE is a global leading ICT solution provider, serves global telecom operators, towercos, government and enterprise customers. Covering more than 160 countries and regions, serves over 1/4 people worldwide. With over 30 years’ experience in telecom energy field, ZTE provides innovative solution cover from telecom site power supply chain and whole life-cycle service, to help towercos improve the network power availability (PAV) as well as reduce the OPEX and carbon emission.
TowerXchange: What kind of products and services are most in demand by tower in Asia-Pacific this year?
Wei Tian: Facing with the challenge of increasing network construction cost and OPEX cost due to 5G deployment and unstable commercial grid, towercos needs TE (telecom energy) solution that has higher conversion efficiency and support intelligent cloud management, provides visual management of devices in the entire network, reduces potential network risks through predictive O&M, and eventually improves end to end O&M efficiency and save cost. For rectifier system shall support smooth upgrading for capacity and DC distribution, satisfy increase requirements brought by new tenants’ introduction and 5G overlapping. It also requires flexible deployment with solar to reduce diesel generator (DG) cost and reduce carbon emissions.
TowerXchange: How are the market and sector needs different in different markets across APAC? Which countries are most advanced in their use of more advanced digital solutions?
Wei Tian: Asia-Pacific has a large population and huge potential of telecommunication services, towercos plays an important role in this market. Different countries and regions have different requirements for towercos. In the Philippines, the trend of telecom operators strip passive device to towercos has been raised, for the towercos there are 1 or 2 tenants sharing in the current period, so site power system and battery shall be deployed based on current requirement with a suitable CAPEX, and support capacity expansion capability can meet the introduction of more tenants in the future. In Indonesia, some towercos start to change their business scope from AC sharing to DC sharing, therefore, there are requirements for the E2E solution integration capability. In Myanmar, the commercial grid continues to deteriorate, loads need to be shut down in low-traffic hours to reduce electricity cost. The accurate on/off control of load is also a key requirement. In summary, accurate load consumption control, smooth upgrade capability, DG remove and OPEX reduction are the core demands of APAC towercos.
TowerXchange: Could you tell us a little more about the technical innovation that is behind some of the most advanced solutions that ZTE offers? What would be important for the towerco executives to know?
Wei Tian: ZTE will release end to end TE solution for towercos at the Meetup, achieve whole power chain efficiency improvement cover from power generation, power conversion, power utilization, power storage and power management field. For example, in power generation part, ZTE sPV solution can achieve all site scenarios overlapping with solar, and sPV support single solar panel MPPT function to increase average 20% solar power generation compared with normal solar solution. In power conversion part, power sub-rack adopts 4kW rectifier with 97% efficiency can realize 36kW output capacity only occupy 5U height, save more inner space for site reconstruction scenarios. The power storage uses SmartLi lithium battery, which supports remote voltage boosting, battery hybrid using, and anti-theft design, maximizing the utilization of battery and protecting assets. The ZTE end-to-end solution not only provides a full range of products, but also provides full life cycle operation services, to help customers achieve site digitization, PAV optimization and OPEX reduction in complicated network scenarios.
TowerXchange: You will be speaking at the upcoming TowerXchange Meetup Asia 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, could you tell us a little more about the topic of your presentation?
Wei Tian: I am glad have chance to introduce ZTE end to end TE(telecom energy) solution in the Meetup. The MNOs’ passive asset divestiture trend is obvious, ZTE end-to-end solution helps towercos better manage the passive device network, improve energy efficiency, and reduce OPEX. Welcome to visit the ZTE booth F001-F002 to learn more about related information.
Wei Tian will be speaking at the 10th annual TowerXchange Meetup Asia 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on November 28th – 29th 2023.
