WTTx is a wireless broadband access solution with performance comparable to fixed broadband access, which Huawei believes will be the first major commercial use case for 5G. It utilises multiple antenna (MIMO) technology and carrier aggregation to deliver broadband services to homes and SMEs.
The company sees a huge untapped market for WTTx (or “wireless-to-the-x”), considering the fact that there are approximately 1.6 billion households in the world with either no broadband or low bandwidth (less than 10Mbps) broadband.
According to Huawei CEO Ken Wu, calculations and research on typical country markets indicate that “about 320 to 410 million household users can afford WTTx in intensely competitive markets around the world”.
“The payback period for WTTx is really satisfying. It’s just around two years, which is much shorter than the eight years for a fixed-line broadband investment,” he added.
The CEO has claimed that data rates will be comparable to those achieved over fibre, with coverage of up to a 30km radius from a single base station. The costs will also be lower as underground cable installation is not required.
He believes that mobile providers are in a good position to exploit the technology as they can make use of existing sites, saving time and leasing costs.