What Is the Impact of 5G on Optical Communication

Since Ovum released its latest 5G subscriber forecast in December 2016, two major changes have taken place in the 5G market. First and foremost, in March of this year, 3GPP announced the acceleration of the development of some 5G standards to make it possible to standardize on commercial 5G deployments by 2019, one year ahead of the previous deployment schedule. In addition, with the acceleration of the 5G standard set-up, T-Mobile US, one of the major carriers, announced for the first time a nationwide 5G network deployment and the United States will be one of the largest in the world.

At present, 5G is in the crucial stage of the formation of technical standards. Major countries and operators in the world have started the 5G test in succession and successively issued strategic plans to carry out industrial layout and seize strategic high ground. China is also actively promoting the 5G technology research and industrialization, 5G technology research and development testing, international standardization support continue to make new progress. Recently, more than three major operators 5G infrastructure, total spending within seven years will reach 180 billion U.S. dollars heavy news came out, the 5G topic to an unprecedented peak.

As we all know, the future of 5G depends on small base stations. When the coverage of base stations is getting smaller and smaller, the number of base stations will increase exponentially. Taking the example of 3.5GHz, the number of base stations of 3.5GHz is more than the number of base stations of 800MHz and 1.8GHz Doubles. If it is planned more than 6GHz, the number of base stations will be more. If it is planned to 26GHz above, it does not know it will reach how many times. Therefore, a substantial increase in the number of base stations is an inevitable result, and the interconnection between base stations requires a lot of fiber. It is reported that at present, the number of base stations in China has reached more than 5 million, while the future development of 5G, conservative forecasts will reach 10 million or more, if the high-band, or even more.

Obviously, optical communication and 5G have met by chance. Accordingly, what is the impact of 5G on optical communications? The opportunities that 5G brings to optical communication are mainly including three parts: optical fibers, optical transceivers and optical network.

1. First, optical fiber is the first beneficiary. 5G band is high and the number of base stations may be 2-3 times. If following the full coverage requirements, according to Fiber Broadband Association estimates, 5G fiber usage will be 16 times more than 4G. Consider China's 4G base station density is very high, the urban area only a few hundred meters spacing, it is estimated that the amount of 5G fiber is 4G 2-3 times.

2. Second, optical transceiver module is the second beneficiary. Assuming that the 5G base station is 2-3 times as much as 4G, considering the medium / backhaul module, it is expected to bring tens of millions of 25GHz high-speed optical module usage. 5G flat architecture to the traditional huge capacity and cost pressures, which requires a large number of optical transceivers to support.

3. Moreover, high-speed optical access network systems and optical devices are the third beneficiaries. The 5G architecture enables several decades of backhaul / midamble / preamble capacity up to tens of hundreds of Gbps levels and requires the introduction of 25G / 50G based CWDM or WDM for tunable lasers, tunable filters and CWDM / WDM devices High cost performance requirements; for TWDM PON systems, the demand for eCPRI and even edge ROADM systems is likely to increase significantly.

To sum up, we are currently at the pinnacle of opportunities and challenges in the 5G era. As the leading optical communications industry and optical component manufacturer in the 5G era, Gigalight has been closely following the market and moving ahead of 2016 in preparation for the beginning of 5G optical device product lines. At present, Gigalight owns a complete line of professional optical modules and other products. In particular, a large number of high-speed new products are launched in last year: 100G QSFP28 CWDM4, 100G QSFP28 PSM4, and 200G QSFP DD SR8. For

What Is the Impact of 5G on Optical Communication

Since Ovum released its latest 5G subscriber forecast in December 2016, two major changes have taken place in the 5G market. First and foremost, in March of this year, 3GPP announced the acceleration of the development of some 5G standards to make it possible to standardize on commercial 5G deployments by 2019, one year ahead of the previous deployment schedule. In addition, with the acceleration of the 5G standard set-up, T-Mobile US, one of the major carriers, announced for the first time a nationwide 5G network deployment and the United States will be one of the largest in the world.

At present, 5G is in the crucial stage of the formation of technical standards. Major countries and operators in the world have started the 5G test in succession and successively issued strategic plans to carry out industrial layout and seize strategic high ground. China is also actively promoting the 5G technology research and industrialization, 5G technology research and development testing, international standardization support continue to make new progress. Recently, more than three major operators 5G infrastructure, total spending within seven years will reach 180 billion U.S. dollars heavy news came out, the 5G topic to an unprecedented peak.

As we all know, the future of 5G depends on small base stations. When the coverage of base stations is getting smaller and smaller, the number of base stations will increase exponentially. Taking the example of 3.5GHz, the number of base stations of 3.5GHz is more than the number of base stations of 800MHz and 1.8GHz Doubles. If it is planned more than 6GHz, the number of base stations will be more. If it is planned to 26GHz above, it does not know it will reach how many times. Therefore, a substantial increase in the number of base stations is an inevitable result, and the interconnection between base stations requires a lot of fiber. It is reported that at present, the number of base stations in China has reached more than 5 million, while the future development of 5G, conservative forecasts will reach 10 million or more, if the high-band, or even more.

Obviously, optical communication and 5G have met by chance. Accordingly, what is the impact of 5G on optical communications? The opportunities that 5G brings to optical communication are mainly including three parts: optical fibers, optical transceivers and optical network.

1. First, optical fiber is the first beneficiary. 5G band is high and the number of base stations may be 2-3 times. If following the full coverage requirements, according to Fiber Broadband Association estimates, 5G fiber usage will be 16 times more than 4G. Consider China's 4G base station density is very high, the urban area only a few hundred meters spacing, it is estimated that the amount of 5G fiber is 4G 2-3 times.

2. Second, optical transceiver module is the second beneficiary. Assuming that the 5G base station is 2-3 times as much as 4G, considering the medium / backhaul module, it is expected to bring tens of millions of 25GHz high-speed optical module usage. 5G flat architecture to the traditional huge capacity and cost pressures, which requires a large number of optical transceivers to support.

3. Moreover, high-speed optical access network systems and optical devices are the third beneficiaries. The 5G architecture enables several decades of backhaul / midamble / preamble capacity up to tens of hundreds of Gbps levels and requires the introduction of 25G / 50G based CWDM or WDM for tunable lasers, tunable filters and CWDM / WDM devices High cost performance requirements; for TWDM PON systems, the demand for eCPRI and even edge ROADM systems is likely to increase significantly.

To sum up, we are currently at the pinnacle of opportunities and challenges in the 5G era. As the leading optical communications industry and optical component manufacturer in the 5G era, Gigalight has been closely following the market and moving ahead of 2016 in preparation for the beginning of 5G optical device product lines. At present, Gigalight owns a complete line of professional optical modules and other products. In particular, a large number of high-speed new products are launched in last year: 100G QSFP28 CWDM4, 100G QSFP28 PSM4, and 200G QSFP DD SR8. For

QSFP28 Optical Transceiver Is a More Ideal Solution for 100G Optical Network?

Before the advent of the 100GBASE QSFP28 optical transceiver (an optical transceiver that can be used to support 100G transmission), the development direction of the 100G network is 10G → 40G → 100G. After the 100GBASE QSFP28 optical transceiver appears, 10G → 25G → 100G or 10G → 25G → 50G → 100G development model began to spread widely in the industry, and now there are already some data centers began to adopt this method to achieve 10G to 100G upgrade. There are all kinds of 100G QSFP28 optical transceivers in the market, like QSFP28 CWDM4, QSFP28 PSM4, QSFP28 100GBASE-SR4, and QSFP28 100GBASE-LR4, etc.

So, the question is why 100GBASE QSFP28 optical transceiver is so ideal for 100G optical network? Will QSFP28 optical transceiver completely replace other 100G optical transceiver? Will QSFP28 optical transceiver change the development of data center? Maybe the post can give you an answer if you are interested.

The Advantages of QSFP28 Optical Transceiver

The cost and power consumption of data center is one of the important factors that its builder needs to consider, which is also an important driving force for the development of the optical communication market. Reviewing the development of 100G optical transceivers, the packaging styles (CFP, CFP2, CFP4) and the standard development and improvement also mainly focus on low cost and low power consumption. The QSFP28 optical transceiver meets these requirements. Compared with other 100G optical transceivers, QSFP28 optical transceiver has following advantages: port density, power consumption, and cost.

1. Port density

The first generation of 100G optical transceiver is a very large CFP optical transceiver, and then appeared CFP2 and CFP4 optical transceiver, CFP4 optical transceiver which is the latest generation of 100G optical transceiver, the width of only CFP optical transceiver 1/4, package Size and QSFP + optical transceiver package size. The QSFP28 optical transceiver is packaged in a smaller package than the CFP4 optical transceiver, which means that the QSFP28 optical transceiver has a higher port density on the switch. In fact, a total of 36 QSFP28 optical transceivers can be installed on the front panel of a 1RU switch.

2. Power Consumption

The power consumption of QSFP28 optical transceiver usually does not exceed 3.5W while that of other 100G optical transceivers is usually between 6W and 24W. From this, QSFP28 optical transceiver consumes much lower power than other 100G optical transceivers.

3. Cost

Now the data center is mainly 10G network architecture, the interconnection solutions are mainly 10GBASE-SR optical transceiver and duplex LC multimode fiber jumper, if the existing 10G network architecture based on the direct upgrade to 40 / 100G network Will save a lot of time and cost. Therefore, one of the major interconnection trends in data centers is to upgrade from 10G network to 40 / 100G network without changing the existing duplex multimode infrastructure. In this case, MPO / MTP branch able optical cable is undoubtedly the ideal solution for 10G to 40 / 100G upgrade.

Will QSFP28 Optical Transceiver Change Data Center?

QSFP28 optical transceiver can be used without going through the 40G directly from 25G to 100G. In addition, the four 25Gb / s transmission channels of the QSFP28 optical transceiver also comply with the 100G Ethernet standard. In the 100G optical fiber link consisting of QSFP28 optical transceivers, the 100G uplink is composed of four 25G links, and the network structure of each 25G downlink is exactly the same as that of the 10G network. The transmission capacity of the entire network greatly increased. Therefore, the 10G → 25G → 100G upgrade can greatly simplify the data center cabling system and reduce the cost and cable density of the cabling system compared with the 10G → 40G → 100G upgrade.

Does QSFP28 Completely Replace Other 100G Optical Transceivers?

Although the QSFP28 optical transceiver has many advantages, it is only one of many solutions for a 100G network and is best for specific applications such as data centers and server rooms. Therefore, other 100G optical transceivers will also have a place in the 100G network. For more details about 100G optical transceivers, please visit Infiberone.