Optical communications market will maintain steady growth

“The steady growth of China’s optical communications market” was recently held on the “2012 Cross-Strait Optical Communication Forum” sponsored by the Cross-Strait Optical Communications Industry Alliance and hosted by Hengtong Group. The delegates gave such a picture to the development of China’s optical communications market. judgment. At present, under the background of rapidly increasing data traffic and increasing broadband speed, although the global economic environment is not stable, the optical communication market in China and even the world still maintains a steady growth and becomes a bright spot in the development of communications.

Sudden increase in data traffic brings historic opportunities

"The arrival of the era of big data is bringing new challenges to the optical communications network." Chinese Academy of Engineering Academician Wu Hejun said that global data traffic is growing at an incredible rate. According to Cisco's forecast, by the end of 2016 global IP traffic will reach 720 Tbps during busy hours, which is equivalent to sending 1.2 million minutes of video per second. According to statistics, the total amount of global data reached 1.8Zb in 2011, compared with 800Tb in 2000 and 600Eb in 2010. It can be seen that the newly generated global data has increased by 40% annually, that is, the total amount of global information can be doubled every two years.

He Gang pointed out that the rapid development of the mobile Internet has also accelerated the growth of mobile data traffic. The current total amount of mobile Internet traffic is equivalent to the total amount of fixed Internet traffic 8 years ago. In the past 18 months, global mobile Internet traffic has increased by 10 times. Liu Rongsheng, vice president of Tsinghua University in Taiwan, China, believes that the rapid growth of mobile Internet applications has greatly promoted the growth of data traffic. According to relevant statistics, by 2016, the mobile video traffic will account for 70% of the total global data traffic.

The development of smart terminals, mobile Internet, and the advent of the big data era will undoubtedly bring new challenges and impacts to optical communication networks. However, it is worth mentioning that these new challenges often also mean new opportunities.

"Big data will also provide opportunities for the development of optical networks." He said that cloud computing under big data will rely on broadband networks. Whether it is the database interconnection of cloud computing centers or the interconnection between Internet centers and customers, it must rely on large capacity. Optical network. At the same time, due to the increase in router capacity requirements for big data, the interconnection between future Tbps-class routers will rely on fiber. In the era of big data, the interconnection between servers in the metropolitan area network also needs to carry large-capacity fiber transmission systems. In addition, along with the development of mobile communications, the increase in the number of base stations, and the emergence of emerging base station modes such as cloud base stations, the use of optical fibers to replace systems between traditional base station relays has been promoted. In addition, under the trend of vigorously deploying WiFi hotspots around the world, future large-scale hotspots will also require fiber optic connections.

Markets and technologies are facing new developments

As the proportion of investment in China's telecom market in the global market continues to rise, the Chinese optical communications market has entered a new period of rapid development, driven by the demand for bandwidth from mobile Internet, triple play and new applications.

“The demand for optical fiber in our country is still very strong”, Zhao Jisen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, predicts that demand for the optical fiber market will remain strong in 2020. At present, many economically developed regions have still not achieved large-scale fiber-optic network coverage. In the future, optical fiber will further enter the family. It is expected that by 2020, fiber optic networks will cover most of the rural areas. According to statistics, in 2011, the number of global fiber installations was the largest in China. According to the prediction of ITU-T, the length of the global FTTx line in 2012 is the longest in China.

According to Lin Ying, head of the Optoelectronics Technology Industry Association (PIDA), Taiwan’s optical communications market is also steadily developing. In 2011, the output value of Taiwan's optical communications was approximately NT 23.902 billion, an increase of 11% over the same period of last year. PIDA expects that the optical communication industry in Taiwan will grow at an average compound annual growth rate of around 11% between 2010 and 2014.

While the market is developing, optical communication technology is also very bright. Zhao Yusen said that the large-capacity long-distance transmission technology has been rapidly developed globally and the 100G system has been matured and commercialized in China. At the same time, the application of optical networks has become more diverse. The future home area network (HAN) will have the ability to manage systems and resources such as lighting, home appliances, security, and energy.

"The network in the future should be an all-optical switching network," said Jian Shuisheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the study of optical network technology, all-optical switching networks are of great significance. On the one hand, the all-optical exchange network will lay the foundation for the establishment of a secure information network in China. Under the current best-effort network exchange system, there is no fixed circuit connection between the sender and the recipient, there is no signaling system, and there are security risks, resulting in the network being ubiquitous and attacks are everywhere. However, if all-optical switching is implemented and there is a signaling system, it will greatly protect the network security. On the other hand, all-optical switching networks will not only increase network capacity, but will also save more than 99% of electrical energy, providing power for the sustainable development of optical networks.

Heng Jianlin, general manager of Hengtong Optoelectronics pointed out that China's optical communications industry presents five trends: First, large-capacity optical transmission technology to adapt to video-based broadband and mobile Internet applications for big data requirements; Second, broadband light Access technology solves the problems of future Internet multi-services and efficient access; third, optical switching technology will solve the problem of node switching in the future Internet; and fourth, intelligent optical networking technology will solve the dynamic networking of future Internet in the optical layer. Problems; Fifth, photonic integration technology will meet the demand for lower power consumption, higher density, and higher speeds in the future optical communications market.

Although the development of the communications market will be affected by macroeconomic factors, in the face of the development of new technologies and new applications such as big data and mobile Internet, in the face of increasing bandwidth demand from users, the power of communication network upgrade will continue to increase. It can be predicted that in the future, driven by the market and technology, with the joint efforts of the industrial chain, China's optical communications market will continue to grow steadily and create greater glories.