CHINA CONNECTED

The race is on to install a fixed broadband telecoms infrastructure in China. Acknowledged as one of the pioneers in the wireless telecommunications market, the Chinese market has experienced massive growth in demand for Internet access and as a result, it has become the focus of a hungry global telecommunications industry.

The fact that China presents operators with a blank canvas is a major advantage, however, the vast distances involved in fibering a national network and its densely populated metropolitan areas, present formidable challenges.

Dr. Chris Emslie, Managing Director of market leading specialty fiber manufacturer Fibercore Limited, explores how far China has come in its bid to build a state-of-the-art national telecommunications superhighway and the journey it still has to travel. He points to recent developments in indigenous telecoms R&D projects, explores the potential advances in free space optical communications and explains why China’s latest ‘Killer Applications’ will be the key to success.

As most of the global telecommunications industry plumbs the depths of despair, there is a light that is still shining brightly despite the ongoing darkness. Voracious consumers of mobile communications technology, the Chinese are now demanding high speed broadband Internet access at a faster rate than any other country on the planet. Since 2001, the number of users in China has grown from around 20 million to an estimated 60 million (the entire population of the UK) by the end of 2002 and the incredible recent growth in the Chinese market still only accounts for about five percent of the total population. Any new network must not only cater for the current demand, it must be future proof for at least the next decade, to enable the emerging Chinese economy to achieve its full potential.

What has triggered this massive growth in demand for the Internet? There are a number of factors that have contributed; increased trade opportunities as a direct result of China’s membership of the WTO (World Trade Organisation) and the growth of an indigenous research and development industry have certainly been significant. The growth of China’s economy and a reliance on the web in the West has also driven Chinese businesses demand for connectivity. The result has been that China is establishing itself as the home of end-to-end businesses – no longer simply the outsourced producers of the world’s finished produce. China is now conceiving cutting edge designs, producing the finished product and taking it directly to a global marketplace. Chinese business has discovered the latest ‘Killer Application’ for telecoms - e-business - and is now demanding the infrastructure to sustain it.

The growth in Internet usage for business, in addition to consumer demand, has resulted in a new found commercial maturity. The Internet offers Chinese businesses the opportunity to trade across language and cultural boundaries where in the past they have been forced to use the telephone. It also provides a more effective and convenient method for overcoming many of the language barriers which had previously stopped Chinese businesses trading openly with the rest of the world. The growth of e-business in China has been a significant element in an economy which is growing faster than any other – a reported eight percent last year. If this growth is to be sustained however, China must create the world’s most advanced telecommunications network.

To address this growing demand for bandwidth, the Chinese government has promised huge investment in both IT and Telecoms, totaling $120 billion and has made drastic changes to the way in which the country’s networks are run. These not insubstantial subsidies, the rapid increases in demand for bandwidth and the first public offering of shares in China Telecom, has attracted the attention of many of the cash strapped Western telecommunications companies. Long seen as an impenetrable market for the West, China has now become a potential lifeline for the beleaguered Telecoms industry, as it bids to get a piece of the action, helping to enable the most advanced broadband communications infrastructure in the world.

So what kind of network does China need? The development of any national network faces considerable challenges, both for indigenous Chinese operators and systems developers and any Western newcomers. China’s varied topology, its sheer size and densely populated metropolitan areas mean that operators and network designers will need to use every available piece of the technological jigsaw to develop a future proof national broadband network. The challenge is to fit the correct pieces to each and every challenge.

Fiber deployment in the long haul is expensive, and will take time to install, but there is no other option. In metropolitan areas installing fiber will create considerable disruption in the major Chinese cities, like Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong and require considerable revisions to existing town planning. Given these challenges, the Chinese telecommunications industry must pioneer new technologies like Free Space Optics. FSO would provide both an interim ‘stop-gap’ measure while fiber is deployed, and a complement to optical fiber in metropolitan hot spots in China, where the existing landscape means fiber alone cannot deliver sufficient bandwidth.

Compared to the West, telecommunications research and development has been slow to develop. For ten years, Fibercore Limited has been supplying state of the art, specialty fibers to some of the most respected and advanced research projects currently being undertaken in China. Our fibers and expertise are helping a number of companies in the heartland of China’s optical technology development community – the Wuhan Valley, to understand and resolve specific telecommunications challenges which will help enable them to create China’s new broadband network. Wuhan is the birthplace of China’s optical communications research programme and hosts the headquarters of the national optoelectronic technology center – China’s equivalent to Silicon Valley. Over the last decade, we have worked closely with the country’s leading telecommunications infrastructure developers, providing a range of rare-earth doped specialty fibers for a range of fiber amplifier and fiber laser development programmes.

The importance of developing ongoing research programmes in China cannot be underestimated. It will be an essential part in ensuring that China gets the network it needs, not just now, but in the future. If the e-business boom is to continue, refining the telecommunications infrastructure on a regular basis will be vital. One concern is that with a host of Western Telco’s now courting China in the expectation of bringing in much needed revenues, a rapidly developed network could become a product of a Western model, rather than one based on a custom plan devised to meet China’s very specific needs.

This would almost certainly lead to any new telecoms infrastructure in China suffering as a direct result of Western influence. While continued growth in the Chinese market would undoubtedly have a positive impact on the global telecoms marketplace, our expertise tells us that it would be short-lived if it seeks to dictate to the indigenous market rather than working with it. A boom driven by the West would almost certainly not deliver what the Chinese market needs – a future proof high speed optical telecommunications infrastructure. China has already experienced the effects of the global telecoms depression through an erosion of the outsourced production business - I’m sure I speak for the market when I say that the experience of the last three and a half years is not something that either China or the West would want to revisit.

Fibercore Limited’s success in the Chinese telecoms industry has been the result of our extensive work within the Chinese optical fibre marketplace for almost a decade, investing - we believe - wisely in local knowledge, by spending time on the ground meeting customers and building relationships with indigenous distributors. This experience now allows us to provide products that the market needs in the short-term, while developing the specialty fibers for the next generation of optical components, to help create a future proof national network. It is important that where the West does play a part in telecommunications development in China, it is seen as a long-term relationship enabling the infrastructure the country needs – and not a way of making a fast buck.

This type of longer term relationship between China and the West would have significant benefits for both parties – take the development of free space optics. The advancement of an indigenous research project in China will ensure that local operators, systems designers and component manufacturers benefit from the telecommunications developments that have already been made in the West. Western Telco’s would benefit from playing an active part in the first full scale implementations of many new technologies, and use the new advances for the development of improved networks at home. The advantages are clear; Free Space Optics (FSO) technology - once seen as an impractical and unreliable technology for communication distances of less than 1000 meters – could be developed for communications of more than 5km –making it a viable option for metro networks in both China and the West. An extensive development programme could yield significant advances in fiber laser technology and further improve the potential of Free-Space optical communication.

Initial developments in FSO from the West are already beginning to filter through to the marketplace and have contributed to its rejuvenation in recent years. Free Space came to the fore in the immediate wake of the 9/11 atrocities, enabling Wall Street to re-establish communications networks in an environment where rapid re-fibering was not a viable option. Developments in Free Space optical communication meant that connectivity could be restored via line-of-sight optical communications in the last mile, which could then be connected to network backbone elsewhere. This type of infrastructure could provide a valuable solution for many of the connectivity challenges China faces working closely alongside fiber.

Initial trials of Free-Space optical communication using green lasers provided little more than the concept. Green light scatters strongly when faced with atmospheric water vapour - mist or cloud - making high speed communications of more than 1000m difficult. Furthermore, green lasers even at low power are fundamentally not eye safe. Key recent developments in Free-Space Optical technology now mean that optical communication is possible over distances of up to 5km, with reliable connections come rain, shine or pollution. Fibercore Limited has been at the forefront of developing specialty fiber for use with high power laser diodes. Our state-of-the-art erbium/ytterbium co-doped CP1500 cladding pump fiber, developed for US client Scientific Atlanta, has enabled the development of reliable compact and robust multi watt fiber lasers. Its unique quasi-polygonal sinusoidal architecture enables it to harness the high power pump energy from multimode pump diodes, representing a significant advance in fiber laser technology. The circular cross section dramatically improves compatibility with conventional optical fibers and components, simplifying device manufacture and increasing reliability.

These developments in FSO both in last mile and extended environments, will form an essential part of addressing both the sheer distances and established metropolitan masses that will be part of building any pan-China network. To ensure that connectivity is nationwide it will be essential to integrate both traditional optical networks and Free Space into the master design. This will play an invaluable part in ensuring that any high speed broadband infrastructure in China is accessible to the remotest parts of the country as well as in the thriving heart of its major cities.

China is achieving what the rest of the world has struggled with for the last decade – developing a state-of-the-art broadband telecommunications network hand-in-hand with the co-called ‘Killer Applications’ of e-business, and increased Internet use, which are creating its necessity rather than despite of them. e-business is already having a dramatic impact on China’s economy and the development of the world’s most advanced telecommunications infrastructure will be an important driver for its continuation. Most importantly, a new telecommunications network in China will rejuvenate a global telecoms industry by proving to the West that national broadband optical networks are the present, not the future and provide a light at the end of the dark telecoms tunnel.

ENDS