Analyzing Key Issues in Fiber-to-the-Home: Integration of Network and Service

The integration of network and service enables fiber-to-the-home to provide strong support for operators' overall strategy.

Some analysts once joked that the original impetus for telecom operators to launch the fiber-to-the-home strategy came from the strong pressure of high-bandwidth access from radio and television broadcasters. However, to this day, Broadband China is not only an important strategic high ground for operators, but has also risen globally to become a key component of national informatization strategies.

Currently, as the foundation of operators' full-service operation strategy, building a high-quality wired access and wireless access network to achieve seamless network connectivity has become the most important and urgent task for operators, giving rise to strategies such as "Wireless City," "Smart City," and "Optical Network City." Clearly, to create a ubiquitous network environment, both fiber-optic city and wireless city plans are indispensable. In the future scenario of terminal convergence and network convergence, users expect to obtain high-speed, location-unrestricted network access anywhere. Among these, wireless access focuses on network deployment in public places, relying mainly on Wi-Fi as a supplement to 3G networks to handle high-traffic services in hotspot areas. In home and office environments, home or office broadband is typically used. Fiber-optic cities provide high-speed access in non-public settings, wireless cities provide high-speed access in public settings, and 3G provides high-speed access in mobile settings (with slightly lower speed and access quality). Together, the three create a ubiquitous network world and achieve a true convergence strategy—none of the three can be omitted.

Wired networks are faster and more stable. With strong network support, applications that heavily rely on the network, such as cloud computing, cloud storage, online document processing, and high-quality online video, can be widely adopted. Therefore, China Telecom and China Unicom, which possess favorable broadband resources, must first establish an overall strategic advantage by creating such a ubiquitous network environment. Only the combination of high-quality network quality and service can provide foundational support for telecom operators' transformation businesses.