Communication optical fiber is one of the most rapid, effective and widely used transmission media invented by mankind so far, and more than 90% of the world's information and communication are transmitted by optical fiber. At present, the mainland has become a major manufacturer and user of optical fiber and cable. In 2023, China's optical cable output will reach 323 million core kilometers, which is equivalent to more than 8,000 circles around the earth. As of the end of March this year, the total length of optical cable lines in the country reached 65.58 million kilometers.
However, this achievement was not achieved overnight, and China's optical fiber industry has also experienced the whole process of changing from weak to strong and leading the world. The morphology of optical fibers is also changing with the advancement of technology.
Early copper cables
In 1996, the construction scene of the Beijing-Kowloon-Guangzhou optical cable communication trunk project
The early telephone transmission medium is also called "cable", which transmits information by cable, and the distance is very clear in the call, and the long distance is intermittent, and the short distance is relatively clear. "White, red, black, yellow, purple", "blue, orange, green, brown, gray", the older generation of communicators know, this is to describe different functional cables. "White-red-black-yellow-purple" is the color of the main chromatographic cable, and "blue-orange-green-brown-gray" is the secondary color. Generally speaking, the smaller the twisting pitch, the stronger the anti-interference ability.
The color of the different cores within the fiber
By 2010, due to the mainland's "light into copper retreat", the application of cables gradually disappeared. Using FTTB (Fiber to the Building) mode, the optical fiber network extends to residential buildings, and multiple users share the bandwidth of optical path branches, with a rate of 10-50M. The construction of all-optical network has begun, and the whole country needs to re-adopt optical fiber network for coverage, which is a huge project for the development of the communication industry.
As a pioneer in breaking the monopoly of the communications industry and the leading basic telecom operator in China, China Unicom is the same age as China's Internet access, and has experienced the whole process of China's optical fiber industry from weak to strong and leading the world. In this process, China Unicom's broadband network has also gradually developed and expanded, not only maintaining industry advantages in the north, but also significantly enhancing its basic capabilities in the south.
In 2015, GPON FTTH (Fiber-to-the-Home) was deployed on a large scale, and optical modems were deployed to homes, allowing users to exclusively use optical branch bandwidth. In September of the same year, China Unicom's first "all-optical network" province was built in Shandong. At the end of the same year, China Unicom completed an all-optical network in 10 northern provinces, and the average access speed of fixed-line broadband increased from 2 Mbps in the past to more than 100 Mbps. Broadband networks have entered the era of 100 Gigabit optical networks.
In 2020, the large-scale application of 10GPON FTTR (fiber-to-the-room) with a rate of 1000M, the optical fiber network will reach the room directly, and the whole house will roam seamlessly.
In September 2021, China Unicom Tianjin was the first in China to complete 5G network and dual-gigabit high-quality coverage across the entire domain of dry megabit broadband. In December of the same year, China Unicom officially released the FTTR-based "Whole Home Optical Broadband" package, providing users with the ultimate smart home experience on top of the all-optical network. With the continuous increase in the conversion rate of whole-home optical broadband users, China Unicom now leads the world in the scale of FTTR users, and whole-home optical broadband has won wide acclaim.
The FTTR access medium is based on the fiber optics of the whole house, and the Wi-Fi of the whole house is superimposed on the wireless network. The 10 Gigabit optical modem is adopted, and the open wire uses FTTR invisible optical fiber in the mode of one support N. A slender transparent optical fiber with a diameter of only 1 mm has reached gigabit speed from entering the building to entering the house, whether it is the living room, bedroom or kitchen, which not only has high transmission bandwidth and long service life, but also maintains the beauty of the interior, making "gigabit easy to enter the house, difficult to enter the room with 100 gigabits" has become history. In April this year, China Unicom Hebei released the Yunlong package of FTTR + home storage + WiFi7 + housekeeping + Starlight, with a speed of more than 2000M, and home broadband is moving towards the F5G-A 10 Gigabit era.
This invisible optical fiber is a transparent optical fiber as thin as nearly 1 mm, and because it is slender enough, it can directly pass through the door crack and wall base, and "walk" from the entrance door along the door frame and baseboard to the center of the living room. Through the "senseless" way, the gigabit network is delivered to every corner of the family, lighting up a beautiful new intelligent life for thousands of households.
"In Hebei Unicom, every Zhijia engineer walking in the community carries 20,000 yuan of equipment," said the person in charge of Hebei Unicom's Qiaoxi Zhonghua Street grid, "For FTTR business support, it is equipped with WIFI6 speed measurement mobile phones, hot melt rods + transparent optical cables, pipe threaders and other professional tools, which provide more powerful support for engineers." Especially in the deployment of invisible optical fibers, through the heating of the hot melt adhesive on the surface of the optical fiber, and after the guide trough structure, it can be laid on the wall, baseboard, ceiling and other scenarios, with the characteristics of fast construction, and the effect is lasting and beautiful, and has been well received by customers. ”
As the third city among the 190 cities monitored in the world in terms of fixed broadband download speed, Beijing has actively carried out the pilot and deployment of 5G-A and F5G-A 10 Gigabit optical networks, and has successively issued the country's first 10 Gigabit optical network and the first 5G-A special action plan, encouraging telecom operators to increase 400G deployment, carrying out 50G-PON and other F5G-A technology innovation pilots, leading the country into the double "10 Gigabit era".
According to the first quarter report of 2024, China Unicom's fixed-line broadband users reached 113 million, a net increase of 9.79 million year-on-year, and the net increase reached a new high in the past decade. The subscriber structure has been significantly improved, with the convergence penetration rate of broadband users reaching 76% and the penetration rate of gigabit users reaching 22%, an increase of 6 percentage points year-on-year.
From "white, red, black, yellow, purple", "blue, orange, green, brown, gray" to a slender and transparent line, from 56K with Internet access to today's 10 Gigabit era. The small optical fiber has carried 30 years of information and communication changes, and it also carries the infinite possibilities of the future. China Unicom, which has been established for 30 years, will continue to write a new story of all-fiber communication network construction, help build a digital China as a network power, and empower high-quality development with new quality productivity.