When one of China’s fastest growing provinces, Zhejiang, needed to ramp up bandwidth to meet increasing demand for an estimated 10 million-plus users, Zhejiang Unicom looked to ECI technology.

 

Zhejiang Unicom, a subsidiary of China Unicom (News - Alert) responsible for the construction of telecommunications infrastructure, has for more than 10 years been deploying ECI technologies including XDM Multi-Service Transport Platforms (MSTPs), BroadGate optical platforms, and LightSoft network management software.

 

The continued growth recently made it necessary for cellular operator to add mobile base stations and to create a scalable, flexible optical network to support increasing mobile traffic and expanded data services.

 

“The stability and high reliability of these platforms enables Unicom to provide reliable services to our mobile customers,” said Huangchuangxue, senior engineer at Zhejiang Unicom. “And the scalability of the platforms enables us to grow our business progressively over the years.”

 

As a result of the deployments ECI was able to help Zhejiang Unicom keep ahead of growing demand though continual upgrades thouoguht the mobile network. This has allowed Zhejiang Unicom to optimize coverage, provide greater capacity, enable new data services, win more customers, and generate new revenues, according to Huangchuangxue.

 

As the rest of the world has been mired in economic uncertainty, China has continued to roll along developing strong business and economic growth that has helped drive demand for more bandwidth and higher quality of service.

 

Zhejiang Unicom has worked with ECI Telecom (News - Alert) since 1998 and installed over 7,000 optical network elements. As one of the largest subsidiaries of China Unicom – the second largest mobile communications company in China – Zhejiang Unicom has approximately 10 million subscribers throughout Zhejiang Province and accounts for 10 percent of China Unicom’s business.

 

“Having worked with ECI for many years, we have established a very good relationship with them, and we place great trust in the company and its equipment,” said Yongjiong Su, senior manager of Zhejiang Unicom’s Network Department. “ECI’s solutions have proven to be the most reliable, stable, and future proof – enabling us to easily upgrade and provide customers with a migration path to new and advanced cellular services. Along with the state of- the-art technology, ECI has provided us with outstanding customer support throughout our fruitful relationship.”

The recent mobile subscriber growth has created the need for more mobile base stations, while demand for data service from businesses also fuels the requirement for more bandwidth. In order to meet anticipated orders for additional network capacity and to accommodate various traffic types including time division multiplexing (TDM) and Ethernet, Zhejiang Unicom constantly searches for new network solutions.

 

Zhejiang Unicom has now deployed the ECI XDM portfolio of MSTPs, as well as the BroadGate BG-20 and BG-40 optical platforms. The company manages the network using ECI’s LightSoft end-to-end multi-layer network management system, enabling Zhejiang Unicom to easily control and provision new services.

 

Huangchuangxue says Zhejiang Unicom has had positive experience with ECI’s implementation and technical support teams has been just as positive as their experience with ECI products.

 “They give us quick response, fast troubleshooting and quick problem resolution. That minimizes disruption to Unicom’s services,” said Huangchuangxue.

The XDM platform from ECI provides Zhejiang Unicom a highly scalable infrastructure capable of supporting existing customers, accommodating new subscribers, and offering a migration path to next-generation services.

In addition, Zhejiang Unicom has deployed ECI XDM MSTPs in all its existing mobile switching centers in Hangzhou City and the surrounding area, providing 6.5 million people with GSM service. The XDMs deliver builtin digital cross-connect, add-drop multiplexing (ADM), and high-capacity wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) functionality within a single device.