ZTE has introduced its first pre-5G concept. At the LTE World Summit 2014 in Nice, France, ZTE announced that under certain conditions some 5G technologies can provide a 5G-like user experience on 4G terminals without changing the air interface standards. 

Company adds that, with Massive MIMO the reference codes, such as the CSI-RS (channel state information reference signal) should be modified to support hundreds of antenna ports, and the terminals should also be modified for the feedback of hundreds of PMIs (Pre-coding Matrix Indicator).

However, in TDD (time division duplex) mode, the symmetry of uplink and downlink channels can be used for channel estimation. Although without feedback channels, the accuracy of channel estimation even exceeds the feedback result. Another example is inter-site interference cancellation in UDNs (user densification network). According to ZTE, the interference can be decreased effectively through it's 4G Cloud Radio architecture, i.e dynamic local mesh networks, and the R12 on/off technologies. 

In addition, ZTE states that it invested heavily in the development of 4G vector processing chipsets, which have extensible software architecture and can meet pre-5G requirements by modifying software instruction sets rather than changing hardware.