Take stock of the optical communications industry 2020 movement: great changes in the transformation, build the base of information and communication

In 2020, the digitalization process of society will accelerate under the influence of the New Crown outbreak. The information communication network supports the development of digital business such as home office and online learning, and as a key link in the information communication network, optical communication has ushered in a new round of development cycle.

In this extraordinary 2020, the optical communications industry has also happened a lot of extraordinary things, C114 carried out a simple comb.

Three gigabits are entering a substantive phase

In 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed a "double G double lift" to speed up the construction of gigabit fiber and 5G, and continuously improve broadband infrastructure services. As the Wi-Fi 6 industry matures further, in 2020, the three major carriers will launch the "3 gigabit" service of Gigabit 5G plus Gigabit Broadband plus Gigabit Wi-Fi.

As of the end of November, the three basic telecommunications companies had 5.88 million fixed Internet broadband subscribers with gigabits and above, with more than 90 million gigabit subscribers. A total of 718,000 5G base stations have been built, with more than 200 million 5G terminal connections. At the same time, the three major operators this year also launched a large-scale Wi-Fi 6 smart home gateway collection, accelerating the development of "three gigabits."

5G pre-transmission leads to heated discussion

"5G commercial, carrying first", a high-quality carrying network is "5G to change society" a strong support. For optical device manufacturers, in the process of carrying network construction, 5G forward pass is the main battlefield. At present, 5G pre-transmission selection xWDM technology has become the consensus, while supporting the OAM mechanism of semi-active solutions to become WDM pre-transmission deployment pattern hot spot

Because 5G RAN has a variety of deployment modes, resulting in a variety of pre-transmission schemes, the current three major domestic operators based on their own business needs to choose different pre-transmission technology solutions. China Mobile is pushing MWDM, China Telecom is pushing LWDM, and China Unicom is on the road to DWDM based on tunable lasers. In the industrial chain support, including equipment, modules, chips, testing and other manufacturers are ready.

The 400G cycle has reached

High-speed has always been the main theme of optical network development, the current 100Gbit/s is the main line and mity network and other mainstream transmission rates, 200Gbit/s deployment has also carried out a preliminary scale deployment, based on the single-channel 400Gbit/s WDM system-related standards in IT U-T, IEEE, OIF and domestic CCSA have been basically completed, it is expected that the regional trunk line, city, data center interconnection and other scenarios of commercial scale, with 100Gbit/s, 200Gbit/s rate system to solve the problem of long-distance transmission.

Of course, for the super 400Gbit / s is not the end point, the industry for the development of 800Gbit / s shows a special interest, Huawei, ZTE, Ciena, Infinera and other domestic and foreign transmission equipment manufacturers and operators continue to launch 800G network test, competing to verify 800G Technical feasibility, IEEE, OIF, Ethernet Alliance, CCSA and other organizations have started or are ready to start 800Gbit/s standardization research, it is expected that 800Gbit/s as a typical super 400Gbit/s rate will be the focus of industry in the next few years.

Openness and flexibility have become the direction of optical network development

Wei Leping, executive deputy director of the Communications Science and Technology Commission of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and director of the Science and Technology Committee of China Telecom Group Corporation, pointed out that from the beginning of the wireless access network, all areas of the network will gradually open up, interface standardization, hardware and software decoupling, hardware white boxing, software open source, based on the all-optical transmission network will not be an exception, the whole optical network should also move towards open ecology.

In addition, access network clouding is also the future development trend, based on the broad SDN concept to build a new generation of access network architecture, OLT function module decomposition and reconstruction to lay the foundation for access network clouding, through built-in computing storage to support network and business virtualization, these can better meet the efficient decoupling, new business development and network transformation, and the future gigabit access network gradually from home broadband access to smart park, smart city, industrial Internet and other fields of expansion.

Silicon light is the future trend, Chinese players continue to emerge

With the development of cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, big video applications, global network data traffic doubles every three years, silicon photon technology with its better reliability, lower price and other advantages have been the topic of discussion in the industry, is considered to be the future of optical devices, especially in data center applications are gradually optimistic. Yole analysts expect silicon modules to ship 24 million, worth $3.6 billion, in the data center market alone by 2025. By then, the overall market size of silicon photons will be $3.9 billion.

Seeing this trend, many foreign manufacturers, such as Cisco, Intel, Juniper Networks, have strengthened the layout of silicon photon technology through mergers and acquisitions. In 2020, a number of Chinese companies are entering the silicon photonics market and achieving good results, Alibaba Cloud is working with Elenion, Hentong Photonics and Rockley Photonics, and in OFC 2020 to launch 400G silicon optical pass-through optical module, Botsin Technology and Sicoya cooperation ...

Optical communication is one of the solid bases of the whole information and communication network, standing in the background of the digital transformation brought about by 5G, the whole optical communication industry, whether it is the evolution and upgrading of technology, or the merger and acquisition integration of the industrial chain, reveals the breath of great change. How to achieve metamorphosis is the key, good from the 2020 development of China's optical communications industry, is on the rise. C114 Communication Network Water Easy