Building the fiber optic network for the next 20 years

The pace of fiber network deployment is accelerating as service providers race to accommodate the growing bandwidth demands of next-generation data transmission. This demand is broad and comes from several sources, including data centers, enterprise and metropolitan area network backbones, as well as powering services such as 5G.

With no signs of slowing down, now is the time to look ahead and consider what fiber networks will require over the next 20 years. Deciding how much fiber and which amounts of fiber are needed for any given network is important from both a technical and operational perspective. While determining the level of capacity required for a particular route is sometimes done on the ground, a high-quality network is planned based on the types of customers that will be served and the bandwidth they may require. Building a scalable, high-capacity network is all about planning for the needs of end users today while anticipating the escalating needs of customers over the next 20 years.

So what is the industry’s answer to this growing demand?

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Rapid upgrading and overbuilding

The growth of high-bandwidth applications is driving fiber service providers to deploy at a rapid pace. Planning for today’s needs, while anticipating future needs, requires increasing fiber counts and creating pathways that can easily accommodate overbuilds and upgrades.

And it’s not just the amount of fiber that needs to be upgraded. Technology changes so quickly today that new generations of hardware are introduced every few months. As the low-latency requirements of new services such as 5G increase, the next generation of routing and switching equipment must also keep up with the latest service level requirements.

In today's age of (hyper)connectivity, the status quo is a moving target. Instead, it's better to plan the network for situations where more throughput is needed than initially anticipated. This means overbuilding the network for those services now, or designing the network and preparing paths to make it easier to deploy more fiber later.

The number of fibers matters

15 years ago, the workhorse of the network was 96 fibers. Today's network standards call for 288 to 864 fibers, or even more. For example, for data centers with increasing bandwidth requirements, 3456 fibers may be used.

When the overall cost of construction is considered, fiber itself accounts for only a small percentage of the total build, so it makes business sense to overbuild to ensure future capacity. Digging up roads or sidewalks to install more fiber is much more expensive and disruptive than running more fiber in the initial construction.

The key is to strike the right balance. There is a case for overbuilding. For example, if 48 fibers are needed to serve an area today, installing 1,728 fibers may be overcorrection. Many fiber service providers take a formulaic approach to new builds, without committing to massive overbuilding.

Changes in Fiber Optics

Over the past few years, changes have been made to optical fiber to make it more efficient and to continue to meet future demands. While the purity of the glass has remained static, with G652 still the standard, the physical dimensions of the fiber have changed due to new technologies and processes that have reduced its internal mass. Newer fibers do away with strength components within the fiber and instead use "glue" to hold the fiber strands together, reducing the size of the bundle by about half. For example, a tube that used to be an inch wide is now half an inch and contains the same or more fibers.

This is a huge step forward for the industry. Seeing 432 or 864 fibers go mainstream with this denser composition. This is especially true in areas where the Department of Transportation has a critical crossing point or a leased third-party system that needs capacity but has limited space.

Planning for next generation services

Designing a scalable network to meet quality of service (QoS) standards requires more than just more fiber. Using clear metrics around capacity requirements in specific situations (such as lateral to a single tenant, ring, or backbone), fiber service providers are able to manage the frequency of upgrades and maintenance, reducing disruption to end customers. The result is consistent and reliable uptime month after month.

For fiber service providers, planning for the next 20 years means building enough headend capacity and creating routes that are strategically designed, built, and licensed to support their longevity and ability to be easily upgraded. This creates continuous QoS that helps customers succeed and scale faster. Ultimately, if a service provider builds its network correctly, it will fade into the background. After all, an always-on network means a job well done.