ZTE Corporation, a global frontrunner in providing ICT solutions, unveiled its autonomous network (AN) solution, uSmartNet, at the TM Forum Digital Transformation World (DTW) Asia 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand. The event was held from March 14-16, where ZTE played a significant role as a gold sponsor.
The TM Forum is a globally recognized standardization organization for telecommunications operation and management, having more than 800 members from 180 countries, including the leading 10 global CSPs. The DTW Asia exhibition and conference highlighted emerging themes such as digital transformation, telecommunications operations, and AN within the Asia-Pacific market. Over 2,000 industry experts and business leaders participated in the interactive event.
At the conference, a video interview featured Zhang Wanchun, ZTE’s Senior Vice President, sharing his insights into the current wave of industrial digitalization. He highlighted that Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are rapidly developing network systems that are seamlessly integrated with the cloud and possess high levels of automation and intelligence.
Zhang emphasized that by leveraging autonomous operations, these CSPs can transform their networks into the fundamental pillars supporting digital transformation across a range of industries.
ZTE introduced its “three leadings” strategy to address challenges in the AN field, including business requirements, openness, and network performance. Through these innovative approaches and industry collaboration, ZTE is striving to pioneer digital transformation while fostering a thriving ecosystem.
At the AN sub-forum, Yang Zhaojiang, Deputy GM of Big Data and Service Products at ZTE, presented a keynote speech titled “Speeding up to L4 Autonomous Networks”. Yang shared ZTE’s path to highly autonomous networks: “To achieve highly autonomous networks, the path is from L2 single-domain automation to L3 cross-domain intelligence, then from L3 network performance optimization to L4 services end-to-end cognitive operation.”
He further explained the role of ZTE’s uSmartNet solution, which leverages digital twins and intent engines to construct the smart brain and provide indispensable capabilities for this journey.
ZTE showcased its uSmartNet AN end-to-end service during the conference, demonstrating the solution’s capacity to meet the complete digitalization requirements of telecommunications network operation and management. This display underscored the solution’s ability to provide bi-directional intention-driven intelligence and cater to various industry service demands, thereby enhancing the value of the digital economy.
Back in 2019, ZTE first proposed the “Self-Evolving Network” solution to facilitate the intelligent evolution of 5G networks with pervasive AI. This initiative was further elaborated in the “ZTE Self-Evolving Network White Paper” for AN, released in August 2020. In 2021, the company launched the uSmartNet self-evolving network system, which was announced to fully support L3 by December 2022.
ZTE continues to play a crucial role in the standardization work of AN, holding key positions in international and domestic standardization organizations, including 3GPP, ETSI, ITU, NGMN, TM Forum, and CCSA. The company remains committed to contributing a plethora of proposals and smart solutions in the field.
