ANKIT AGARWAL THE ROADTO5G
IT ALL STARTS WITH FIBRE Offering scalability, security and
Leading operators are now recognising that fibre is imperative for a successful 5G rollout
affordability, fibre is already turning heads and is expected to play a pivotal role in 5G rollouts across the world. The role of fibre and how and what it connects has shifted over time. Since 2005, the amount of fibre has grown year-on- year as data consumption has increased – and this is only expected to grow as new technologies such as 5G grow rapidly. Fibre began by connecting only major cities in the 2G era, grew to link most cities, towns and sub-urban areas in the 3G era, evolved to connecting towers as backhaul in the 4G era and is now set to play a key role in connecting small cells, buildings and homes in the 5G and Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) era. All this points to fibre moving closer to the point of consumption and playing an ever-growing role in supporting the exponential growth in the demand for data. As a result, leading operators are now recognising that fibre is imperative for a successful 5G rollout. When at the latency requirements and bandwidth necessary to facilitate 5G, it’s clear to see why pushing deep fibre into the network is the best route to take. As a result, more fibre is needed – and fast – if 5G networks are to look like the 5G we expect. Ultimately, cracking the code to delivering economic fibre access will be the key to fulfil the promises the industry has made. Verizon, AT&T and Telefonica have all openly declared that fibre has become the number one option for the 5G future, calling it the ‘cornerstone’ of tomorrow’s networks. The data centre is also being brought closer to the edge and ultimately, closer to the user, as OTT players and content players such as Netflix invest in delivering content to consumers. ROLLOUT REQUIREMENTS To achieve a successful 5G rollout, several infrastructure requirements will need to be met. As well as a significant
increase in the number of small cells in a conventional cellular network if we are to achieve the 5G experience we’re all hoping for. Each of these small cells will need to be backhauled by fibre, particularly in urban areas. Recent analysis has shown that globally, 30% of towers were backhauled in the 3G era, 60-70% were backhauled during the 4G era and in a 5G era, there will be no option but to connect 100% of small cells and backhaul all towers with fibre. To enable this, close co-operation will be needed between governments, OTT providers, service providers and installation companies to ensure that small cells and towers of this scale can be deployed quickly and efficiently at a low cost. A HARMONISED APPROACH 5G is set to reach heights never seen before, blanketing not only cities with ubiquitous coverage, but rural areas too. Innovative new technologies such as the IoT will also be enabled, paving the way for emerging countries to be transformed, as healthcare and education become more accessible and government services are boosted to ultimately bridge the digital divide. However, to realise this potential and meet the requirements of 5G, a tremendous amount of optic fibre is needed. Although operators are seeing the value of fibre, governments must be the driving force behind deployment and work with local municipalities to make the process as simple as possible. Authorities should also incentivise operators to ensure that fibre is successfully deployed on a large scale. At Sterlite Tech, we are also putting the wheels in motion to bring more skilled engineers to the market in response to the lack of people-power across the globe. Creating a certification programme to develop training and skills, we plan to train 10,000 individuals in India and are exploring options for fibre deployment that isn’t dependent on highly skilled workers and can still be deployed at scale. Through a harmonised approach from the industry and governments across the world, we’re certain that fibre will pave the way toward the 5G future we’re all craving, ensuring that the journey ahead is smooth and that operators get to the destination cost-effectively and efficiently.
increase in the number of end-points in the access network, operators around the world will need to strategically deploy a deep fibre network. It is also crucial that symmetric speeds of 1 to 10 Gbps and latency of 1millisecond are achieved for faster uploading, plus the Average Fibre Count (AFC) in the cable must be increased to reduce the need for optical splitters. Utilising fibre will also ensure that the network is future-proof while driving down costs, simply by deploying a higher fibre count cable to reduce installation costs per fibre. It’s also imperative to deploy enough capacity for future expansion which is almost inevitable, given the leaps we’ve seen in the past decade. The network fabric of tomorrow will need to be centralised, bringing together multiple applications including mobile access, FTTH and other applications such as smart cities to be fully future- proof. A common access of fibre is pivotal for all these applications and they must be upgradeable – the network will need to have the capacity, bandwidth and storage necessary for the future – centralised through SDN and virtualised applications that are capable of multi- layer functions and providing flexibility on top of white boxes. As a result, we will see a three-layered structured network of fibre, server and software that is smarter, simple and capable, as well as ultimately being 5G-ready. This is where fibre will play a critical role. Networks will also need to be ultra- dense and small cells are crucial to this. 5G will require a 20-30 times
Data Use Cases for 5G
Driverless Cars
VREntertainment &Meetings
Virtualclassrooms& InteractiveLearning
Real-time CitySurveillance
0
AR-Shopping& visualisation
Real timegaming
HDMovie Streaming
Multiperson videocall
20
VideoStreaming
40
ConnectedCars
SmartRetailStore-Interactive try rooms,Autobilling
Connected Home&Devices
60
80
Maps&Navigation
100
120
MobileApps
Chat&sharing
140
WirelessCloud basedoffice
Social
160
0 5
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
180
Speed (Mbps)
18
| ISSUE 14 | Q3 2018
www.opticalconnectionsnews.com
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog