China's current per capita broadband penetration rate is less than 10%, far below the level of 30% to 40% in developed countries. It is very necessary and timely for the broadband strategy to formally rise to the national level. In recent years, with the formal deployment of my country's optical fiber broadband network, the network coverage and access rate have increased significantly. However, compared with developed countries, there is still a big gap in the innovation capability of optical fiber access technology and the penetration rate of optical fiber broadband networks in my country. With the advent of new optical fiber technology and the advancement of national policies, my country's optical fiber transmission has entered a new development field, promoting the in-depth development of the security transmission industry.

The advent of new optical fiber technology

According to related media reports, researchers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom have produced a new type of optical fiber that can transmit data at 99.7% of the speed of light. Using the new fiber, the researchers achieved a data transfer speed of 73.7Tbps—roughly equivalent to 10TBps, which is 1,000 times faster than today's most advanced 49Gb fiber, with significantly lower latency.

It is reported that the speed of light in vacuum is 299,792,458 m/s, but the propagation speed in other media is usually much slower. In conventional optical fibers made of quartz glass, the speed of light is slowed down by 31%. In fact, light travels faster in air than in glass, which is why researchers at the University of Southampton used a hollow optical fiber that is almost completely filled with air.

The researchers overcame this problem by radically improving the hollow design, using a type of photonic bandgap edge. This new design can achieve low loss (3.5dB/km), wide bandwidth (160nm), and a delay rate far better than conventional optical fibers, resulting in a 31% increase in the transmission speed of light and data.

The security industry welcomes development opportunities

According to media reports, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a notice a few days ago, requiring the implementation of the national standards for fiber-to-the-home. The notice calls for the full implementation of fiber-to-the-home for new residential buildings. According to the requirements of the national fiber-to-the-home standard, since April 1, 2013, in urban areas at the county level and above where fiber-optic transmission has been realized in the public telecommunication network, the communication facilities of new residential areas and residential buildings shall adopt the construction of fiber-to-the-home method. At the same time, encourage and support qualified townships, rural areas and new residential areas and residential buildings to achieve fiber-to-the-home.

The notice also requires that the renovation of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) existing residential buildings be accelerated. The competent departments of housing and urban-rural construction and communication industry in various places should increase the supervision of resource sharing of communication facilities in existing residential areas and residential buildings, and effectively solve the problem of difficulty in entering the field of fiber-to-the-home renovation. Analysts believe that the new regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will accelerate the process of fiber-to-the-home, especially the introduction of the new regulations in the form of national standards, which is mandatory and will help the gradual implementation of the development goals of fiber-optic broadband in my country during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period.

It is reported that in mid-May 2012, the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Broadband Network Infrastructure" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed that during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, the focus will be on the development of fiber-optic broadband network advancement projects. Promote the "Urban Optical Network" project, fully implement fiber-to-the-home in new residential quarters, and basically realize fiber-to-the-building in key enterprises and institutions. By the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, there will be more than 40 million fiber-to-the-home users nationwide. On May 23, 2012, the executive meeting of the State Council made further instructions on the promotion of fiber-optic broadband projects, requesting to speed up the popularization of fiber-to-the-home. At present, the three major telecom operators are accelerating the process of fiber-to-the-home, and have launched fiber-to-the-home access services in more than 20 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.