Looking into ZTE Philippines’ innovative projects amidst growing demand for digital economy

The company’s data centres and full turnkey projects have demonstrated excellence in technology adoption and efficiently delivered the expected outcomes.

Telecom leader ZTE Philippines continues to demonstrate excellence in technology by adopting innovative solutions to fulfil the unique characteristics of the Philippines and its customer requirements. It has delivered projects successfully and efficiently as part of the growing demand for the digital economy.

Amongst the projects it has led is the construction of the country’s Core and Convergence Data Centres (DC), together with telecom company DITO. In the past, the DITO DC project has faced several challenges as the sites are dispersed on various islands in the Philippines with significant distances between them, increasing engineering costs, and difficulties brought by natural calamities and global health issues.

With the assistance of ZTE in the DC project, it went in a different, yet better direction. 

For the project, ZTE chose a containerised cloud network-integrated solution for edge data centres that can sustain in extreme environments of 9-level intensity seismic behaviour, and 17-level wind resistance with a service life of over 25 years.

This form of edge data centre has the dual attributes of a mobile network and a computing centre with a power capacity of 50kW. It has both AC and DC power supplies to cater to IT servers and telecom equipment respectively, to ensure continuous power supply, to run concurrently whilst realising cloud and network integration within the container DCs.

ZTE also used a variety of energy-saving technologies in the hyper-scale DCs, including cold and hot aisle separation, energy-saving equipment configuration, and a water cooling system to reduce power usage effectiveness by 25%.

Moreover, the company implemented two channels of power supply for HVAC systems to further decrease power consumption. It has also implemented a 2N redundancy configuration for power supply with two independent distribution systems by configuring the cooling system and service equipment power distribution transformers separately to ensure the reliability of the power grid.

ZTE also used Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology with intelligent capacity management and energy efficiency management as a visualised solution, since it provides complete models, power distribution, and equipment room design tools to build a cost-efficient DC.

It intelligently simulates and manages the whole engineering process, including planning and design, cost calculation, quality, and progress control, resulting in a significant increase in delivery efficiency. 

Meanwhile, ZTE has also spearheaded a P3 full turnkey project which covers network design, site acquisition, civil work, tower erection, electric connectivity, 4G/5G/microwaves equipment supply, installation and commissioning, network optimisation, data centre construction, outside plant, and managed services.

The project constructed over 1,700 4G/5G wireless sites, over 4,500 km of outside plant, and 30 internet data centres covering 20 islands from 2020 to 2021.

Some of the major challenges to this project are the frequent occurrence of natural disasters that damage deliverables and the pandemic that restricts the mobility of resources on-site and in-country.

To overcome these challenges, ZTE uses the AMB methodology by tailoring business processes and innovative management systems according to the unique characteristics of this project, which emphasise ability assembling, method innovation, and business continuity.

It also implemented multiple innovative solutions such as digitalisation of the project management system, cloud delivery model, cutting-edge network analysis, and optimisation tools to increase delivery efficiency. It also introduced new 4G products with bigger capacities and ports to ensure the wireless network is future-proof.

The tower provided by ZTE is 40% lighter than a conventional tower whilst meeting all the specifications required, such as loading capacity, wind speed, wind pressure, and others subsequently adopted in the whole project as it saves cost on the steel materials, foundation, and manpower cost required for deployment.

“We dynamically formulate our strategies, products, solutions, and services and have ensured DITO's fast time to market, improved the subscriber's experience through enhanced coverage and capacity, and a future-proof network that can be upgraded as per demand,” ZTE said.

Its innovative data centres and the strategies implemented to ensure proper execution have earned the recognition of the Asian Technology Excellence Awards 2022, as ZTE took home the Philippines Technology Excellence Award for Data Centre - Telecommunications and the Philippines Technology Excellence Award for Infrastructure Technology - Telecommunications awards.

The prestigious awards programme aims to recognise exceptional companies that are riding the digital disruption wave and leading the technological revolution and digital transformation journeys in their respective industries.

The Asian Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2023 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding retail initiatives, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].