"Broadband China" has not yet succeeded. FTTH should move from "bombardment" to "intensive cultivation".

FTTH has been around for 14 years since its promotion in 2003, and another 4 years since the release of the "Broadband China" strategy in 2013. FTTH has evolved from the dream of optical communications people into reality and has become an indispensable infrastructure for people's work, study and life.

Although the "Broadband China" strategy has made gratifying progress, the road ahead is still difficult. As Mao Qian, Chairman of the China FTTH Forum and Honorary Director of the Optical Communications Committee of the China Institute of Communications, said: "Broadband China" has not yet succeeded, and colleagues still need to work hard. He believes that the stage of large-scale and rapid development of FTTH users is coming to an end, and we should move from the "bombardment" era to the "intensive cultivation" era.

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FTTH should move from the era of "bombardment" to the era of "intensive cultivation"

Looking at the development of FTTH around the world, the number of households exceeded 300 million in mid-June 2015 and reached 382 million at the end of 2016, while the number of DSL users was only 298 million. It can be seen that FTTH users far exceed DSL users. Among them, the number of FTTP users in the Asia-Pacific region reached 328 million, and the total number in other regions was 62 million. Owen predicts that the number of FTTP users in the world will exceed 550 million in 2021. Among FTTH operators, seven Asian operators and four American operators occupy the top eleven positions, with China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom ranking in the top three. It can be seen that the Asia-Pacific region is the dominant market for FTTH, and my country's strong position in the FTTH market cannot be shaken.

It is understood that by the end of 2015, my country's FTTH users had reached 120 million households, the number of ports was 269 million, and the number of households covered was 446 million. By the end of 2016, the number of users in my country was 228 million, the number of ports was 522 million, and the number of households covered had reached nearly 880 million. The coverage rate of urban households has exceeded 95%, and the coverage rate of rural households is 30%. By the end of April 2017, the number of fiber-optic access users in my country reached 250 million households, and the number of fiber-optic access FTTH/0 ports exceeded 570 million.

However, despite the achievements, we have to understand one thing: although my country is a large FTTH country, it is not a strong FTTH country. There are still many problems to be solved in the development of FTTH. In Mao Qian's opinion, the problem of difficulty in entering residential areas has not been solved so far, especially in the original old residential areas, which is a headache for operators. In addition, operators use brutal means to compete for "territory" and cut off the opponent's optical cables from time to time.

Among them, Mao Qian also mentioned the problem of "fake broadband", which has a very bad impact on users. Of course, the existence of "fake broadband" is still caused by second-hand operators, that is, broadband subcontractors.

In addition, the support for universal telecommunications services needs to be further strengthened. "At present, the service strength of operators is relatively poor. From the overall situation, the funds provided by operators are relatively large, and the government's support is relatively weak. The government's support should be further strengthened."

Mao Qian pointed out that in the context of low-price competition, the quality of products such as optical cables and ODN is worrying, which deserves the joint efforts of operators and suppliers. At the same time, the problems of barbaric construction and non-standard operation during the construction process, which cause many hidden dangers in the project, should not be ignored.

Correspondingly, how to solve the problem and cultivate FTTH in detail has become an unavoidable topic. In this regard, Mao Qian put forward four suggestions. First, provide more attractive new services to meet the growing new needs of users.

Secondly, improve and enhance service quality to increase user satisfaction and loyalty.

Third, overcome the difficulties in building FTTH in old, remote, poor, mountainous and rural areas, develop new users as much as possible and improve rural coverage.

Fourth, we should focus on the development of FTTO for enterprise users and FTTP for commercial users. “Operators pay more attention to this aspect and have made great efforts. There are many office buildings in my country. If we can cover them, there will be huge potential.

Gigabit broadband should move from highbrow to lowbrow

In addition, Mao Qian also mentioned the development of gigabit broadband in China. Currently, the three major operators have launched gigabit broadband services, but the current charges for gigabit broadband are very high, with annual fees of tens of thousands of yuan, which can only be regarded as "highbrow".

He believes that the high cost is understandable. "Just like when FTTH was first promoted, the cost was also very high because there were few users. With few users, the batch size was small, so the product price, construction service and construction costs were very high. But at that time we pushed for reasonable charges for FTTH to make it easier for users to accept. As a result, the number of users gradually increased and the construction cost gradually decreased."

Therefore, gigabit broadband should also adopt a similar strategy, with small profits and high revenue, so that the majority of users are willing to accept it and reduce costs through scale, so that it can truly reach the "common people". At the 2017 Mobile World Congress, Qatari mobile operator OOREDOO announced the launch of a new 10Gbps FTTH service. Although it is too early to promote it universally, it also shows a development direction of FTTH.

***, Mao Qian reiterated that my country has developed into a major FTTH country, but it is not yet a strong FTTH country in terms of penetration rate and network speed. According to the strategic requirements of "Broadband China", by 2020, a broadband network infrastructure covering urban and rural areas, serving borders, high speed and smooth operation, and advanced technology will be basically built, and the number of fixed broadband users will reach 400 million, the household penetration rate will reach 70%, and the optical network will cover urban households. "In this regard, there is still a lot of gaps, and colleagues need to work together."