Fiber Optics: The Conduit for 5G Proliferation

In an interaction with Industry Outlook, Manjit Singh, Executive Director – Cables, KEC International Ltd. shares his views on the current evolution of fiber optics industry, its role as an enabler for 5G adoption, and more.

Fiber optics market size is estimated to be USD 4.3 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 6.9 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of 10.0% between 2019 and 2024. The demand for internet across the globe, coupled with the rising need for FTTx, is the major factor driving the growth of the fiber optics industry. How do you see this market evolving in India?

As people and businesses have become connected, more and more of everyday life and work has gone online – from communicating via email, shopping and streaming videos to cloud-based computing and business analysis based on big data. The move to complete or flexible WFH has only increased demand for faster communication. This growing need for fast broadband connectivity requires a reliable, affordable, and scalable state-of-the art communications infrastructure network. To meet this demand, telecommunications networks have moved to data transmission via fibre-optic cables, first at the network cores, and then gradually expanding fibre-optics ever wider. 

Data growth in the Indian telecom market has reduced the prominence of traditional wireline broadband technologies such as DSL and cable modem. These technologies are inefficient to meet the customers’ demand for high-bandwidth applications such as high-speed internet access, video-on-demand, HD TV, IPTV, and online gaming. In this scenario, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology, which offers advantages like high bandwidth capacity and the delivery of high speed, high quality, and multi-play services (data, voice, and video) through a single channel, presents a strong business opportunity for telecom operators and will grow at high pace in this decade. The other factor which has contributed to the growth of Optics Fibre industry is planned deployment of 5G services in India, fiberisation of Telecom Towers (only 1/3rd of 6.25 lakh towers have been fiberised) and laying of OFC for critical defence Infrastructure.

These developments are expected to bring significant opportunities for the industry, especially for manufacturers like KEC International. With over six decades of rich experience in the industry, KEC offers an extensive range of telecom cables in addition to Power cables, both in domestic and export markets, manufactured at our fully integrated,state-of the-art manufacturing facilities in Vadodara and Mysore. We manufacture and supply a full range of optic fibre cables, right from 2F to 288F, and PIJF cables up to 2,400 pair, to several leading telecom service providers, ISPs, Data Centers, EPCs etc.

What are the major challenges impeding the growth of the Fiber Optics industry? Where do you see the Fiber Optics industry post-pandemic from a technology adoption standpoint?

We have a long way to go in terms of infrastructure in this area, be it towers, fibre deployment or spectrum. The challenge is to meet the dense connectivity requirements of the future. Against a target of 7.5 million kms of fibre required to be deployed, only 2.68 million kms have been deployed to date. 

India's fibre deployment (in kms) to population ratio stands at 0.09% compared to other countries like the US and Japan where it is 1.7% each and China with 0.87%. Apart from fibre issues, hurdles such as Right of Way (RoW) issues and laying of OFC Cables continue to hamper the progress towards deployment of fibre. Fibre optic technology continues to develop alongside the increased demand for greater speed and efficiency. We also look up to the Government for suitable stimulus packages to enhance growth in the Telecom sector.

A much-discussed topic in recent years is 5G since it promises to revolutionise the communications industry by delivering complete digital connectivity. The deployment of a 5G network infrastructure is set to significantly advance VR and AR technology, as well as driverless automobiles and cloud computing. What significant role does fibre optics play in achieving a true 5G revolution?

5G is designed to support IoT and Big Data (like connected/autonomous cars, factory robotics, smart cities, etc.) and involves real-time data collection and transfer, higher network availability levels, full wireless network coverage (no dead spots), lower latency and higher bandwidth capabilities. In the rollout of 5G, India is catching up with major economiessuch as the United States, Japan, Turkey, and China, where commercial services have already been introduced. Currently in India, around 33% of telecom towers relate to fibre, which needs to reach at least 80% to fully utilize the potential which 5G services could offer. To make 5G a success story in India, it is essential to invest on network densification heavily through provisioning of fiber, small cell and mobile towers.

The current capacity per tower site is about 300 Mbps for 2G/3G/4G services. For 5G, the capacity required for each site will increase to 1-5 Gbps, which will require fiberised backhaul. Traditional microwave can only provide speeds of 250 Mbps. E-band microwave can provide 1-2 Gbps depending on the allocation of the number of spots. In order to achieve capacities of 1-5 Gbps, there is a need to deploy fibre across all the tower sites.

Please elaborate on how fibre optics is increasingly being considered as the solution for increasing connectivity on commercial flights, in the Aerospace sector. Tell us how the use of fibre optics will enable improvements to in-flight entertainment and passenger Wi-Fi without interfering with or compromising the complex electrical data systems in place on aircraft.

The use of fibre optics is gaining momentum in the aerospace sector. Fibre optic networks on commercial flights are expected to grow quickly to support network topologies sharing data more than 100 Gbps. Fibre optics networks with lightweight fibre optics transceivers can support these high speeds without installing large copper-based networking systems.

Which technologies do you think have massive potential for the Fiber Optics industry but are yet to be implemented in the industry?

We feel that the technologies which will evolve in the future will be those which are concentrated around capacity increase of data transfer and increase in speed. For example, new devices, such as optical couplers and optical switches, are supporting a recent trend known as All-Optical Networks or AON. This new technology allows data to be transmitted quickly without any electrical processing, which will result in further transmission distances. This will increase the scalability of the existing fibre networks.

The optical fibres are getting smaller and smaller to the deployment challenges being raised by end-use applications. As telecom operators start looking for high fiber count cables in reduced diameters, optical fiber, and cable manufacturers are investing in research and development to realize smaller fibers and cables. Where do you see the market for Fiber Optics Industry in the near future?

Smaller fibre optic cables are designed for applications where large numbers of fibres are required and space is at a premium. With rapid urbanisation, this need is only going to go up exponentially. Micro cables have been used extensively in data centres and smart city networks.To counter the challenge, there is a relatively new development in fibre optics - bend-insensitive fibre. Since this fibre is less sensitive to the stress caused by bending, more fibres can be packed densely into the cable. Additionally, by reducing the fibre coating from 250 microns to less than 200 microns, a bundle of fibres takes up much less space. We see that the demand for such cables is bound to increase in the near future. For a technology driven firm like KEC, our focus continues on new product development, collaborating with customers for solving their requirements and problems relating to new cable applications and supplying the best quality products around the globe.