China Mobile is advancing in 5G technology by collaborating with Lenovo to develop a cloud-based wireless network prototype that supports high-speed mobile internet services. The partnership focuses on enhancing network flexibility and scalability through network functions virtualization (NFV) and centralized deployment, driving down costs while improving user experience. As demand for mobile data services grows, this initiative aims to meet the diverse needs of consumers and industries with innovative solutions.

1. China Mobile is leading the way in the race for next-generation
5G mobile internet technology. With strong support from Lenovo,
the company is testing out a ground-breaking new network
architecture, and will introduce AI into base stations and provide
users with more personalized access services that will allow them
to surf, stream and scroll to their hearts’ content.
China Mobile
Ringing in a new age of mobile technology

2. Instant messaging, streaming videos, downloading music,
sending photos to friends, scrolling through social media… oh,
and occasionally making phone calls. The way we use our
mobile phones has changed dramatically in recent years, with
many people now going through gigabytes of mobile internet
data every day.
Ran Duan, Senior Project Manager at China Mobile Research
Institute, the largest telecom provider in the world with more
than 873 million subscribers, begins: “As data plans are getting
cheaper, user habits have changed. Individual users’ monthly
data usage has increased dramatically, resulting in continuous
growth of the capacity and quantity of base stations. This is
putting more and more pressure on the operators in their
network construction and maintenance.”
And it’s not just smartphones that need a mobile internet
connection. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT),
billions of devices – from home appliances to manufacturing
machinery and cars – will be connected in the near future.
To meet the ever-growing demand from consumers and
enterprises for high-speed mobile internet, China Mobile is
working to transition from 4G to 5G, the next generation of
wireless network technology that offers faster data transfer and
lower latency, and can support a higher density of users.

3. Increasingly, telecom providers are choosing to replace the
traditional closed network appliances with an architecture built
on open commodity hardware, a concept known as Network
Functions Virtualization (NFV). This new technology will give
operators the ability to rapidly deploy, scale, and reconfigure
network functions.
Ran Duan comments: “This project we are currently working on
is to promote cloudification of the radio access networks
[C-RAN]. By centralizing deployment of the baseband units
[BBUs] and leveraging virtualization technologies, we create
resource pools for baseband processing. This will greatly
reduce the overall cost of the radio access network. Thanks to
the ability to reconfigure network functions, it will enable us to
meet different user needs very quickly. In the C-RAN project,
Lenovo is one of our important partners and one of the
important goals of our cooperation is to resolve performance
bottlenecks in the virtualization platform, deploy virtual
network functions on the platform, and validate and analyze
tradeoffs of cloudification of the mobile networks.”
Working closely with Lenovo, China Mobile used Lenovo
ThinkSystem SR650 and SR630 servers, powered by Intel®
Xeon® Platinum processors and running Lenovo ThinkCloud
NFV infrastructure software, as part of its Proof of Concept
(PoC). The integrated, cloud-based solution delivers high levels
of elasticity and flexibility, and has greatly improved networking
and real-time performance of the virtualization platform,
meeting the low latency and high data throughput
requirements of the wireless network.

4. “Lenovo offered a complete, end-to-end solution, including
hardware, software and services,” says Ran Duan. “The
technical professional support we have received from Lenovo
throughout this PoC joint R&D project has been invaluable. For
example, Lenovo proposed introducing a thin adaptation layer
in the hypervisor that supports diverse accelerator hardware,
but hides differences in the hardware interface, allowing
maximum decoupling of hardware and software; for hardware,
they have also made a series of custom designs that are
tailored to our central office conditions.”
He adds: “Another reason that we work closely with Lenovo is
its openness. A large number of Lenovo R&D staff are directly
involved in open-source projects, and we were impressed by
the open-source culture of the team that had shared in-depth
technical implementation details with us. The development of
this PoC was a real team effort and today we are still working
very closely with Lenovo to fine-tune our solutions.”
Through this PoC technical cooperation, with the joint efforts
of both parties, China Mobile has made great progress in
improving performance of the NFV infrastructure software,
adopting hardware accelerators, and designing hardware
specifications. It is expected that as 5G commercialization
progresses, mobile network cloudification will gradually
become a reality in the near future.
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“As one of the leading NFV solution
suppliers, Lenovo has strongly
supported us in obtaining the
capacity of a flexibly expanding
network, enabling us to deliver
faster, better 5G wireless internet
services, and meet diversified 5G
network requirements.”
– Ran Duan, Senior Project Manager, China Mobile
CS00049-00
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5. To meet the ever-increasing demand for high-speed mobile internet
services, China Mobile is working with Lenovo and the other industry
partners to jointly develop a 5G cloud-based wireless network
prototype. The TD-LTE prototype based on multiple virtual machines
runs on Lenovo ThinkSystem servers, with Intel® Xeon® Platinum
processors and Lenovo ThinkCloud NFV infrastructure software,
forms part of a PoC verification with the goal of delivering highly
flexible and highly differentiated 5G network services in the future.
China Mobile
Ringing in a new age of mobile technology
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Solution components
Hardware
Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 with
Intel® Xeon® Platinum processor
family
Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 with
Intel Xeon Platinum processor
family
Lenovo ThinkSystem NE2572
RackSwitch
Lenovo ThinkSystem NE10032
RackSwitch
Lenovo RackSwitch G8272
Remote Radio Unit Smartile,
developed by China Mobile
Data Conversion Board,
developed by China Mobile
Software
Base Station Software,
developed by China Mobile
Lenovo ThinkCloud NFVI
Services
Lenovo Professional Services
“As one of the leading NFV solution suppliers, Lenovo has strongly
supported us in obtaining the capacity of a flexibly expanding
network, enabling us to deliver faster, better 5G wireless internet
services, and meet diversified 5G network requirements.”
—Ran Duan, Senior Project Manager, China Mobile