China's Fiber Optic Cable Mileage Maintains 18% Growth in First Three Quarters of This Year
Last year, due to expectations for 4G construction, the fiber optic cable construction this year, which had been widely criticized for a long time, performed better than expected, maintaining an 18% growth rate in the first three quarters. Some fiber optic cable manufacturers even stated that in certain regions, supply of fiber optic cables was falling short of demand.
Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the economic operation data for the communications industry in September 2014, showing that the total length of fiber optic cable lines reached a new high, with newly built access network fiber optic cables exceeding 860,000 kilometers. From January to September, the country newly built 2.075 million kilometers of fiber optic cable lines, bringing the total length to 19.528 million kilometers, a year-on-year increase of 18%, maintaining a relatively fast growth trend. Access network fiber optic cables, local network trunk fiber optic cables, and long-distance fiber optic cables accounted for 46.5%, 48.8%, and 4.7% respectively. The lengths of access network fiber optic cables and local trunk fiber optic cables increased by 17.7% and 20.1% year-on-year, with new constructions of 864,000 kilometers and 1.176 million kilometers respectively; long-distance fiber optic cables maintained slight expansion, with a year-on-year increase of 3.1%, adding 35,000 kilometers of new long-distance fiber optic cables.
In this regard, industry experts stated that with the further deployment and rapid construction of the national "Broadband China" strategy, tasks have been completed well ahead of schedule, which has also driven strong demand for fiber optic cables. According to the deployment of the "Broadband China" strategy, in 2014, the target was to build 300,000 new 4G base stations and add fiber-to-the-home coverage for 30 million households. As of now, the number of 4G base stations has reached approximately 600,000, and fiber optic access users have exceeded 60 million, with construction speeds far exceeding deployment targets.
Although the transition from copper to fiber is no longer driving the explosive growth in demand for fiber optic cables as it did during the initial construction of FTTx, demand has continued to increase year by year. In addition, 4G construction has not affected operators' investment in optical networks. Previously, rumors that China Telecom and China Unicom would reduce fixed network investment have not materialized, and they have basically invested fully and adequately in fixed network construction. Most importantly, after China Mobile obtained its fixed network license, it began aggressively building fixed networks, further driving demand for fiber optic cables. Meanwhile, solutions such as fiber extension, which are widely adopted in 4G networks, have also driven the market for certain types of specialty fiber optic cables.