Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE has teamed up with China Unicom to announce the industry’s first 5G converged set-top box. The STB comes with a three-in-one design which includes functioning as a gigabit gateway, a router and a set-top box.
ZTE explains that for coastal and
mountainous areas where optical fibre is not easy to deploy, 5G uplink Gigabit
access can be realized by deploying 5G converged set-top boxes, and home Wi-Fi
can be realized by connecting converged gateway + multipoint AP + Mesh protocol
in the downlink. This set up will deliver panoramic network coverage and
seamless roaming within the home. The ZTE Converged Set-top Box is equipped
with a high-performance chip, supports AVS2.0, HEVC and ultra-high-definition
video decoding. It also has rich interfaces and indicators such as HDMI and
USB.
In terms of product design, the 5G
converged set-top box has a cool black appearance. It utilises a vertical
orientation with an ultra-thin base in a three-dimensional design. The design
will allow for efficient heat dissipation. It also has a vertical card design
at the bottom which is small and convenient for users to deploy.
This new product comes just a month after
the ZTE ZXV10 B836CT and B866V2-H Set-top Boxes were unveiled. The two set-top
boxes are powered by a quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor and run Android TV.
They also support AV1 codec and come with CAS/DRM digital encryption system to
protect operators’ content copyrights. The B836CT is targeted at the cable/DTT
hybrid market while the B866V2-H is aimed at the IPTV/OTT market.