ZTE Corporation, on Monday successfully proposed a research project on Multicarrier Load Distribution (MCLD) of UEs in LTE. The research project, led by ZTE with cooperation of China Telecom, Verizon, and other operators, aims to enable idle user equipment (UE) to be distributed evenly among multiple LTE cells (including heterogeneous network cells) to improve the performance and operational efficiency of LTE networks.
 
This project has obtained support from more than 40 operators and equipment manufacturers, and was passed at the 3GPP RAN#67 meeting on March 12, 2015.
 
LTE networks are under increased pressure due to the fast growth of the subscriber base. Current and heterogeneous LTE network architecture leads to overlapped coverage of multiple macro and micro cells and the existing cell reselection mechanism cannot solve the problem of how to distribute UEs evenly across these different cells. In order to address this network issue, ZTE proposed the research subject of MCLD.
 
With 2,179 patent applications ZTE ranked third in terms of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in 2014, as indicated by the latest data published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). ZTE is one of three enterprises that have the most PCT applications for five consecutive years, and is the only enterprise in China to achieve this.
 
ZTE ranks top in holding standard-related LTE essential patents, with more than 800 patents that account for 13 percent of the world’s total, and has started its research and practice in 5G technologies. ZTE will continue as a main contributor to 4G standards and a key innovator of 5G technologies and standards, and will continue to develop the pre-research and patent portfolio of key 5G technologies to further enhance its core competitiveness of intellectual property rights before the evolution to next-generation technology.