Whole Industry Chain Working Together to Promote Gigabit Ecosystem in the Fifth Generation Fixed Network Era

[Shanghai, China, June 27, 2019] At the Gigabit Forum held in Shanghai during Mobile World Congress 2019, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), Broadband Development Alliance, Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, Ovum, China UHD Video Industry Alliance, China Telecom, China Unicom, and Huawei have reached consensus on the development and evolution history of fixed networks. The fixed network history has experienced five phases of development. At present, the fixed network has entered the gigabit era based on the 10G PON technology. All parties in the industry chain agree to work together to promote the prosperity of the gigabit industry ecosystem.

"The 5th Generation Fixed Network: A Gigabit Future Is Now " initiative

With the development of optical broadband access technologies and the wide application of new bandwidth-hungry services such as HD video, smart home, and Cloud VR, gigabit broadband has become essential for continued global broadband development. According to a report from Ovum, more than 234 operators worldwide have released gigabit services, and 20 operators have launched 10G services. 10G PON is an underlying technology of gigabit networks. In the next 5 years, it is estimated that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10G PON OLT ports in the central office (CO) side will reach 41%, and that the CAGR of 10G PON ONTs will reach 124%.

In his keynote speech at the forum, Ao Li, Director of the Technology and Standards Research Institute of CAICT and Deputy Secretary General of the Broadband Development Alliance, said: "From the perspective of the fixed network development history, we have witnessed the narrowband era (64 Kbps) represented by the PSTN/ISDN technology, broadband era (10 Mbps) represented by the ADSL technology, ultra-broadband era (30–200 Mbps) represented by the VDSL technology, and megabit era (100–500 Mbps) represented by the GPON/EPON technology. Now we are entering the 5th generation, gigabit broadband era featuring the 10G PON technology. By penetrating into vertical industries, gigabit optical fiber networks will break the boundaries of traditional industries, and bring about huge industrial and economic benefits. We hope that all parties will jointly promote the prosperity of the gigabit industry."

All parties at the conference agreed with the division of the fixed network development phases, and are optimistic about the prospect of the 5th generation fixed network. Some industry players have already started to deploy gigabit networks and actively promote the industry development. By the end of May, 2019, 26 provincial operators in China have released gigabit commercial packages to promote the commercialization of innovative services such as Cloud VR, smart home, and scenario-based broadband (game acceleration, campus broadband, webcast broadband, etc.), greatly boosting the prosperity of the gigabit ecosystem.

Richard Jin, President of Huawei Transmission & Access Network Product Line, said in his keynote speech: "I cannot agree more with the five fixed network development phases proposed by the Broadband Development Alliance. The proposal makes the future development of the fixed network clear. In the gigabit intelligent era featuring 10G PON, the industry will be more vibrant and prosperous, with a lot of surprising innovations. In the future, the 5th generation fixed network will go hand in hand with 5G to make full use of the massive bandwidth of optical networks and mobility of wireless networks. Ubiquitous connections will benefit social development in an unprecedented way and enable innovations in various industries."

Compared with the previous generations of fixed access technologies, 10G PON has achieved far greater improvements in bandwidth, user experience, and connection capacity. The upstream and downstream rates can reach symmetric 10 Gbps, with latency as low as 100 μs. At the end of his keynote speech, Richard Jin said: "As a solutions enabler of the gigabit industry, Huawei provides the SingleFAN Pro full-fiber access solution to help global operators build end-to-end gigabit networks to cover various services in different scenarios. A new blue ocean, new competitiveness, and new user experience are strengths of the solution to promote the prosperity of the gigabit industry."

At the end of the forum, Huawei, operators, industry organizations, government officials, and other industry partners jointly launched the "The 5th Generation Fixed Network: A Gigabit Future Is Now" initiative, calling for concerted efforts in the industry to extend the 5th generation gigabit optical network to all rooms, desktops, and devices. A blue ocean market of USD 1000 billion is awaiting us all.