How does Huawei's first F5.5G optical network boost the transformation of digital intelligence?

Photo: Liu Xueying

Source: 21tech

Author: Ni Yuqing

Editor: Zhang Weixian

As wireless networks evolve from 5G to 6G, fixed-line networks are also moving forward from F5G. On April 27, during the Huawei Analyst Conference, Huawei put forward the initiative to develop F5.5G.

The so-called F5G, that is, the fifth generation of fixed networks (The 5th generation fixed networks), also known as F5G all-optical networks, stands for gigabit optical fiber networks. Similar to 5G, F5G is also a new generation of communication standard proposed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to represent intergenerational communications in fixed-line networks.

5G and F5G complement each other and play a connectivity role for different scenarios. 5G is suitable for mobile and multi-connection scenarios, such as drones, Internet of Vehicles, etc., while F5G is suitable for fixed, large bandwidth, low latency and high security scenarios, such as industrial Internet, data center interconnection and enterprise campus.

In 2020, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute ETSI officially released F5G, which solves the problem of fragmentation and generational unclear of the fixed network industry, the global fixed network industry has entered the fast lane, and in the future, with XR, holographic, naked-eye 3D and other services widely used in homes and enterprises, the demand for network reliability in the industrial field continues to upgrade, and green, low-carbon and sustainable development, all put forward new requirements for F5G fixed networks.

Therefore, Wang Tao, managing director of Huawei and director of the ICT Infrastructure Business Management Committee, pointed out at the analyst conference: "After the formulation of the F5G standard, the broadband communication industry has developed rapidly. In the home environment, gigabit access has become a universal service in China and many developed countries. Huawei's FTTR (Fiber to Room), FTTO (Fiber to Office), and FTTM (Fiber to Machine) solutions have improved the optical network experience and expanded application scenarios. Facing 2025, in order to meet the needs of home scenarios, commercial scenarios, and industrial scenarios in terms of bandwidth, latency, and access density, the industry needs to work together to promote the continuous evolution of F5G, which is our original intention of proposing the F5.5G initiative. ”

Fixed-line evolution: from F5G to F5.5G

In the field of communications, fixed network communications and mobile communications are the main ways of connection, in Huawei's view, connectivity is still a sunrise industry, is the basis for building an intelligent world, in the digital era, connectivity is pregnant with a huge market space.

Taking fixed networks as an example, according to EY's "Global Optical Communication Industry White Paper", the global optical communication industry will reach 1.4 trillion yuan in 2020, and will reach 3.2 trillion yuan by 2025. It is foreseeable that F5G gigabit optical network will continue to empower thousands of industries and drive trillions of market space.

"However, the development of new services in the past two years, including the process of the epidemic, has made us deeply aware that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the broadband quality and service experience of the home at present," Wang Tao said in an interview with 21st Century Business Herald and other media reporters, "In the family environment, Wi-Fi access rate is low, unstable, and can not provide a seamless, high-quality user experience." ”

To this end, Huawei wants to unite the industrial chain to continue to promote the continuous evolution of the fixed communication field, Wang Tao said: "By 2025, we hope that the fixed network will evolve to F5.5G. The biggest feature of F5.5G is to achieve 10 Gbps anywhere (ten gigabits everywhere) in the home broadband scenario, and 10 Gbps anywhere in the fixed network field refers to the available rate, and its peak rate must be further pushed up to 50G to achieve. And this 10G is up and down to reach 10G, which can greatly improve the home broadband user experience. ”

Specifically, what are the technical and application improvements of F5.5G compared with F5G? F5.5G continues to enhance the three capabilities of F5G and adds three new capability dimensions, thereby improving the benefits of the four aspects.

The first is the introduction of next-generation technologies such as Wi-Fi 7, 50G PON, and 800G, and the home access bandwidth is increased from 1Gbps to 10Gbps everywhere;

The second is that the network capability is upgraded from the carrier level to the industrial level, and the network latency is reduced to the microsecond level, which meets the extremely low latency requirements of the control needs of industrial robots, and the network availability is increased from 99.99% to 99.9999%, meeting the high reliability requirements of high-frequency dispatching of the power grid;

The third is to extend from optical communication to light perception, and realize the perception of vibration, stress and temperature through the scattering effect of optical fiber, and the accuracy reaches the meter level;

Fourth, the low energy consumption characteristics of optical technology are used to increase the energy efficiency of the network by 10 times.

This means that in the F5.5G era, the speed, quality and efficiency of the connection will be further improved, and the evolution needs the support of the whole industry chain, including device suppliers, equipment providers, operators, industrial organizations, etc.

At the analyst conference, ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Globe Telecom, MTN and Huawei jointly launched the F5G Industry Evolution and Development Initiative, calling on the industry to jointly promote the direction of F5G evolution and the definition of standards.

New infrastructure accelerates the digital economy

As network infrastructure, F5G and F5.5G are important bases for digital development and are closely related to the "double gigabit" national strategy. In 2021, the "Gigabit Optical Network" has received further attention, and the relevant reports clearly require the construction of 5G networks and Gigabit Optical Networks to increase the construction of 5G networks and gigabit optical networks to enrich application scenarios. At the same time, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology quickly issued the "Action Plan for the Coordinated Development of "Double Gigabit" Networks (2021-2023), which will be called "double gigabits" with gigabit optical networks and 5G.

Among them, F5G and F5.5G represent the latest generational generation of Gigabit optical networks, and the development of Gigabit optical networks will help the growth of digital economy. World Bank research shows that every 10% increase in broadband penetration drives an average GDP growth of 1.38%. According to the White Paper on the Development and Employment of China's Digital Economy 2019, China's 180 million core kilometer optical cable network has supported the development of 31.3 trillion yuan of digital economy.

Specific to the application scenarios, digital upgrades such as homes, parks, intelligent manufacturing, industrial fields, medical fields, and data centers all need more powerful optical network support.

For example, AR/VR is entering some industrial fields from the field of life entertainment, the bandwidth requirements of high-immersion experience and interactive VR have exceeded 1Gbps, the bandwidth requirements of high-definition medical AR assistance have reached 10Gbps, and the bandwidth requirements of holographic projection of industrial designs have now exceeded 1G, and the maximum future can reach 1T.

Whether for homes or enterprises, F5.5G can provide users with 10Gbps Everywhere and peak 50Gbps experiences on terminal Wi-Fi coverage, home and enterprise access, and bandwidth transmission through technological innovation on the basis of F5G gigabit coverage to meet bandwidth requirements.

In addition to the transmission advantages, fiber optic networks are also showing more potential. Wang Tao introduced that through research, it has been found that the effects of Rayleigh scattering, Brillouin scattering, Raman scattering and other effects of optical fiber can be used as a means of environmental monitoring, such as detecting vibration, stress, temperature and so on.

Huawei has tried in the oil and gas pipeline industry, through the deployment of light sensing monitoring unit, according to the vibration changes in the surrounding environment of the pipeline, combined with the algorithm to construct, collapse and other conditions of the meter-level positioning, the event recognition accuracy rate of 99%, the future can also be further improved to 1 meter positioning accuracy, with light perception and visual management to achieve intelligent unmanned inspection of oil and gas pipelines. In the future, light sensing technology will be more widely used in fire, earthquake early warning, gas, water quality detection and other scenarios.

"Global Optical Communication Industry White Paper" pointed out that in intelligent manufacturing as an example, F5G Gigabit optical network will effectively promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, it is estimated that F5G Gigabit Optical Network per 1 million investment, will leverage about 1.46 billion industrial Internet market; taking the big data industry as an example, F5G Gigabit Optical Network investment will further benefit the expansion of data center racks, according to EY calculations, F5G Gigabit Optical Network per 1 million investment, supporting the growth of about 1900 square meters of data center scale.

With the evolution of F5G to F5.5G, optical fiber networks from gigabit to 10 gigabit, from telecom grade to industrial grade, will provide a base support for the digital and intelligent transformation of thousands of industries. Huawei also proposed the development direction of F5.5G, advocating that the industry reach a consensus on the evolution direction of F5G as soon as possible.

Editor: Lu Taoran