LTE and FTTH are two technical levers in the next 10 years

In December 5, Wei leping, director of China Telecom Technology Commission, said that after China Telecom obtained a 4G license, it will coordinate the coordinated development of LTE and FTTH and give full play to its respective advantages ~ In the past 10 years, LTE and FTTH will be two major technical levers for China Telecom. In terms of 4G network planning, China Telecom will first adopt TDD and FDD hybrid networking. After the standards are mature and interoperability is completed, it will gradually implement converged networking.

After the arrival of 4G, will China Telecom's FTTH progress be slowed down? Does it seem "cheap" LTE allow consumers to abandon FTTH? Wei leping believes that in the early stages of development, LTE will indeed have a great impact on wired broadband access, including FTTH. However, in the long run, the two are not mutually alternative, but complementary, the two will achieve coordinated and coordinated development. The stable and high-speed access feature of FTTH is not possible for LTE. It can be found through the construction cost analysis that, under the condition of China's national conditions, the access rate per user is more than 2 Mb/s, FTTH is cheaper. The higher the access rate, the cheaper the FTTH. Less than 2 Mb/s for each user, making LTE more cost-effective.

Wei leping said that China Telecom will use LTE and FTTH as ~ How to maximize the features and advantages of these two technologies to form a seamless broadband network is a major concern for China Telecom. How can we coordinate and develop these two technologies? There are at least five aspects: 1. In terms of application regions, FTTH will not be widely covered nationwide for a long time, mainly in large and medium-sized cities, as a mobile network, LTE must achieve full coverage as soon as possible. Second, in terms of application scenarios, LTE can take into account both indoor and outdoor mobile users. FTTH is only applicable to indoor users. Third, in terms of business applications, LTE focuses on low-and mid-bandwidth data services and fragmented video services. FTTH focuses on video services, especially high-definition and three-dimensional videos and other family entertainment services. Fourth, in terms of business models, FTTH is a monthly subscription system. LTE focuses on a tiered traffic system with limited traffic. 5. In terms of user access rate, LTE focuses on users with less than 2 Mbit/s rates, and FTTH focuses on users with 12 Mbit/s or more and 20 Mbit/s. If we can coordinate the development of LTE and FTTH in the above five aspects, the two will not only not conflict, but will complement each other and form a strong integrated broadband advantage.

Wei leping pointed out that, based on existing foreign experience, LTE has indeed had an impact on FTTH, including user habits, broadband prices, user development quantities, and business models, however, there will be no essential substitution, and the two will complement each other. Compared with the FTTH model, which can be gradually invested for a long term, LTE development requires a large investment coverage in the short term. Therefore, investment in the short term will definitely have a great impact on the FTTH development. However, in the middle and long term, it will gradually step into the overall and balanced development track, and form a new pattern of strategic positioning with "One-to-two new three" and with LTE and FTTH as the main technical lever.

In China Telecom's 4G network planning, Wei leping said that the first step would be FDD and TDD hybrid networking. Because the global CDMA industry camp has all switched to FDD, the transition from CDMA to TD-LTE has no technical standards, network interoperability issues have not been resolved, which makes China Telecom unable to provide TD-LTE mobile phone business in the short term, only TD-LTE data card services are available. In order to meet the needs of CDMA users to use LTE services as soon as possible and provide low-cost, low-power-consumption, and small-volume mobile phones as soon as possible, China Telecom decided in areas with large business volumes, first of all, the use of data cards to provide TD-LTE services, and a wide range of 4G network will use the FDD standard.

Step 2: wait until the transition from CDMA to TDD standards is complete, network interoperability is also gradually realized, and the network capacity utilization is getting higher and higher, and then the TDD is gradually developed to achieve a seamless switching of FDD and TDD integrated networking. It may take at least one to two years to make a conservative estimate.

Wei leping said that FDD and TDD are just two different access methods under the same LTE standard. From the perspective of patents and standards, no country or enterprise can claim to have a decisive influence on a certain standard. The LTE standard is the crystallization of the common wisdom of the world. Therefore, do not waste any access method, this is the attitude of being truly responsible to consumers, enterprises, and countries in light of national conditions and coordinated development. Facts also prove that this will be the most conducive strategy for LTE development.

At present, 3G is in a period of scale development, and 4G is coming again. How can we balance the resource investment and development strategies of the two? Wei leping believes that to make full use of 3G, 3G is still the dominant cellular communication technology. In the short term, LTE coverage cannot be compared with 3G. Therefore, LTE is mainly positioned as a high-end user in large and medium-sized cities. 4G focuses on video and high-speed services. In terms of investment, it will be tilted towards LTE, and 3G investment will be greatly reduced, but it will not be completely stopped. According to international experience, after 4G deployment, as user habits change and applications develop, traffic increases dramatically, and 3G also faces expansion problems. Future 2 ~ In the past three years, China Telecom has put a lot of investment pressure on it. The company will concentrate its resources on accelerating the 4G network construction, and cover wang.com and counties and developed towns as soon as possible, at the same time, it is necessary to expand the 3G network to a limited extent.