Malaysia’s U Mobile and ZTE have completed a proof of concept for a portable, fully off-grid mobile network site powered by solar energy and connected to U Mobile’s core network through satellite backhaul.
The companies tested the system at SK Mentu, a primary school in Sebuyau, Sarawak, and Balai Kebudayaan Iburu, a community hall in Sipitang, Sabah.
According to U Mobile and ZTE, each site can be installed and activated within three days, compared with deployments in challenging rural locations that can take close to a year when site acquisition, tower construction, terrestrial transmission and grid-power work are required.
Solar power and satellite backhaul
The trial used a 12-meter lightweight pole instead of a conventional telecommunications tower. Solar panels supply the sites, while a battery system can provide up to 52 hours of operation without sunlight depending on the configuration.
The sites supported both 4G and 5G services. U Mobile and ZTE said live testing reached peak download speeds of up to 134 Mbps. Those figures are proof-of-concept results reported by the companies and should not be read as a general performance guarantee for future deployments.
Because the architecture does not depend on the national electricity grid, fiber or other terrestrial transmission infrastructure, the companies see potential applications in locations where conventional network construction is difficult or slow.
Rural coverage and disaster response
U Mobile Chief Technology Officer Woon Ooi Yuen said the company is exploring more agile approaches to extending its ULTRA5G network, particularly in areas where normal deployment is challenging.
ZTE Malaysia Chief Marketing Officer Tey Khang Lian said the trial combines solar generation, battery storage and satellite backhaul in a portable rural network design.
Beyond rural connectivity, the partners said a portable off-grid site could also support emergency or disaster response when grid power or terrestrial communications infrastructure has been disrupted.
The project follows earlier U Mobile and ZTE work on AI-enhanced 5G and industrial connectivity in East Malaysia. TNGlobal has also recently covered U Mobile’s separate partnership with Tencent Cloud on enterprise 5G and AI services.
China’s Tencent Cloud, Malaysia’s U Mobile to cooperate in enterprise 5G, AI