Review and Outlook of Global and China's FTTx Development

Mao Qian, State Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Communication Technology and Network / Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications

Despite the negative impact of the global financial crisis on the economy, the development of fiber broadband access FTTx did not slow down in 2009, and even showed an accelerated development trend in China.

As is well known, FTTx is an ideal broadband access method. With the continuous growth of people's demand for broadband services, the further maturity of fiber access technology, and the continuous reduction of construction costs, FTTx is increasingly favored by telecom operators and accepted by users.

Broadband access is the foundation for building an information society, and governments of all countries have attached great importance to it, successively introducing relevant broadband strategies. Broadband construction is also an effective means to drive economic development. When encountering the global economic storm, many countries regarded accelerating broadband construction as an important measure for economic recovery and invested huge amounts of funds.

As a result, people from all walks of life, especially industry colleagues, are very concerned about the development status and future trends of FTTx. At the time of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, this article attempts to review China's development trend in 2009 and the development trend in 2010. Since the annual data statistics still require considerable time, the latest data currently available are mostly statistical results as of the end of June 2009. Therefore, the annual data can only be estimated based on the situation of the first half of the year and the development speed, and some are based on predictions by industry experts, so they are for reference only. If there are inaccuracies, they will be corrected after the annual data is released.

Global FTTx Development Overview

In-Stat once predicted that global FTTx users could reach 58.2 million in 2008. Due to the large-scale deployment in China and the United States, FTTx users will reach 74.8 million in 2009. By 2012, the global FTTx user base is expected to reach 116 million, with a five-year average annual growth rate of 14.6%. However, analysts at Light Reading believe that despite the global economic downturn, the global fiber-to-the-home user growth rate is expected to exceed 32% in 2009, and the market will continue to grow at a rate close to 30% in the coming years. According to the latest data released by the FTTH Council at its meeting in Houston, USA on September 28, the global fiber-to-the-home construction projects continued to develop steadily in 2009, with more than 5.5 million new FTTH/B users added globally in the first six months, an increase of 15% compared with December 2008. If the same growth rate is considered, the global new FTTx users will exceed 10 million by the end of 2009. Specific data will be released at the meeting in Lisbon, Portugal on February 24, 2010.

By June 2009, the number of economies (countries and regions) with a global fiber Internet penetration rate exceeding 1% had increased to 21. In terms of global fiber Internet penetration ranking, the Asia-Pacific region still leads the world, occupying the top 4 positions. In the first half of 2009, South Korea's penetration rate exceeded 46%, ranking first. Hong Kong, China and Japan followed closely with approximately 33% and approximately 30% respectively, while Taiwan, China ranked fourth with approximately 19%, followed by Nordic countries such as Sweden and Norway. Mainland China ranked sixteenth (see Figure 1). Moreover, countries such as Norway, Slovenia, Andorra, Iceland, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Italy, and Latvia basically developed all FTTH.

Figure 1. Global FTTx penetration ranking as of the end of June 2009.

According to the global broadband statistics survey data published by the international research institution Point Topic, FTTx users reached 56.3 million by the second quarter of 2009.

Japan is the earliest and fastest country in the world to develop FTTH. According to information released by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan's fiber (FTTH) users reached approximately 15.89 million by the end of June 2009 (as shown in Figure 2), an increase of approximately 2.8 million compared with the end of June 2008, with an annual growth rate of 21%. Based on this speed, Japan's FTTH users may reach 17.3 million by the end of 2009.

Figure 2. North American FTTH user growth curve.

RVA market research institution pointed out at the FTTH Council's Houston meeting that North America's FTTH is still developing healthily. By September 2009, 17.2 million households had fiber passing by, accounting for 15% of North American households. The number of users subscribing to fiber access exceeded 5.3 million, with 1.5 million new users added in one year. The development of North American FTTH users from 2001 to 2009 can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3. North American FTTH user growth curve.

Despite the economic downturn, Europe's FTTH is still developing steadily. Fourteen European countries have entered the ranks of more than 1% penetration. However, the development in large countries such as France, the United Kingdom, and Germany is still unsatisfactory. The 2 million FTTH users in all of Europe are still a very small number compared with 6 million in North America and 30 million in Asia-Pacific.

2009 was also a year of rapid progress in international high-speed PON technology. On October 30, 2009, IEEE released (published) 802.3av, the 10G EPON standard. At its plenary meeting on October 9, 2009, ITU-T SG15 determined three recommendations of the G.987 series, including G.987 "XG-PON Definitions and Abbreviations", G.987.1 "XG-PON Service Requirements", and G.987.2 "XG-PON Physical Media Dependent Layer Specification". The research progress of these two standards organizations laid the technical foundation for the promotion and application of high-speed PON.

As early as when IEEE 802.3av was still in the drafting process, relevant chip manufacturers had already started the design and development of 10G EPON ASIC chip sets, so that around the release of the standard, corresponding chips were available. Although still in the FPGA stage, they provided favorable conditions for equipment manufacturers to develop 10G EPON equipment and systems. Therefore, many manufacturers have now developed 10G EPON equipment and systems that can be provided to telecom operators for testing and field trials.

At its plenary meeting on October 9, 2009, ITU-T SG15 also determined the revised version of Recommendation G.657 (Characteristics of a bending-loss-insensitive single-mode optical fibre and cable for the access network), further dividing the original two types A and B into two subcategories each, namely A1, A2 and B2, B3, expanding the options for the design, production, and application of G.657 fiber.