1) Data usage is growing rapidly due to increased mobile broadband, enterprise connectivity, smart homes, and smart cities, driving increased demand for optical fiber networks with higher capacity and lower latency. 2) Current fiber networks may not meet the bandwidth and latency needs of future applications like virtual reality and tactile internet. Fiber innovations are needed to continuously expand network capacity and reduce latency. 3) Developing higher fiber count cables, reduced diameter fibers, rollable ribbon cables, and improved closures can help deploy fiber networks more quickly and future-proof them for emerging technologies.

1. Fibre – The Next 10 Years
COMMSDAY 2022
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Confidential
Dr. Jitendra Balakrishnan
Chief Technology Officer – Optical Networks

2. What is driving innovations in fibre tech?
Data usage growth linked to optic Fibre consumption
More data = More fibre
To enable Mobile
Broadband
(5G tower connectivity)
To enable ICT
apps
(enterprise connectivity)
To enable connected
homes
(Residential Connectivity)
To enable Smart
City Initiatives
(Public Connectivity)
Drivers of data usage over the years
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Source: EY CII Broadband 2022

3. 3
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The gap between predictions and reality of
fibre innovation…
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4. 4
© 2019-2020 Sterlite Technologies Limited
The gap between predictions and reality of
fibre innovation…
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“What capacity are we
building the network for?”
“What latencies do
tomorrow’s
applications need?”
“Where are data demands
growing in the network?”
“How future-proof is
the network?”
”What is the cost/bit in
the network?”
“How robust is the network
to failure / damage?”

5. 5
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The gap between predictions and reality of
fibre innovation…
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6. Fibre infrastructure is key to meeting capacity
& latency requirements
Disaster
Alert
Automotive
ecall
Sensor Network
Monitoring
Device Remote
Controlling
Autonomous
Driving
Real Time
Gaming
Bi-directional
Remote Controlling
First Responder
Connectivity
Personal cloud Video
Streaming
Multi-person
Video call
Tactile Internet
Virtual Reality
Augmented
Reality
Wireless Cloud Based
office
Bandwidth
Throughput
M2M connectivity
Services
enabled by
5G
Services
delivered by
legacy
networks
Delay
1 ms
10 ms
100 ms
1,000 ms
<1Mbps 1Mbps 10Mbps 100Mbps >1Gbps
Source – GSMA Intelligence
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7. Fibre innovation and network capacity – a
complicated relationship
Network Capacity Growth trends
System
Capacity
per
Fibre
(b/s)
10 M
100 M
1 G
10 G
100 G
1 T
10 T
100 T
1 P
10 P
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
Space Division Multiplexing (SDM)
WDM & optical amplification
Electrical TDM
Digital coherent systems
Input power & nonlinear Shannon limit
8T/ Fibre
100 G/ Ch.
Physical
limit of SMF
400 G/ Ch.
[1] Papapavlou, C., Paximadis, K. and Tzimas, G., July. “Progress and Demonstrations on Space Division Multiplexing” In 2020 11th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and
Applications (IISA (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
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8. Challenges in network deployment – Cables and
closures matter too
Rollable ribbon cables
144 to 6912 fibres
Fibres need
micro bend insensitivity
to allow denser cabling
A2, Lower diameter fibres
for reduced footprint
Faster & cheaper
network rollouts
gor deep
fiberization
Future-proofing
of the backhaul
network through
high fibre count
Better use of ducts
and real estate
through smaller
cable diameters
Mass splicing for
installation &
restoration through
ribbon fibres
Interconnects and
closures for faster
deployment,,
reduced footprints
and non-proprietary
solutions
Increasing impact
of data centers is
creating new
deployment needs
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9. G.657.A2/B3
MCF/FMF
High density cables
+
G.657.A1/A2
G.654.C/E
Edge networks
for
lower latency
SDM to
increase
network
capacity
Long-
distance
networks
with high
capacity
Future-
proofing
networks
High fibre
count
cables
Mass fusion
splicing
Compact
footprint
Reduced dia
fibres
Rollable
ribbon
+
G.657.A1/A2
MFD
compatibility
Cutoff matching
What does all this mean for optical fibre?
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10. beyond tomorrow