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.

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