CommScope says network convergence will be put on a high fiber diet as we move into the future of broadband. The company recently co-sponsored the "Broadband Outlook 2016" survey by Telecoms.com Intelligence that concluded fiber will play a crucial role in the development of 5G, as well as network speed in all FTTH deployments.
"Fiber will inevitably be pushed further into the network in order to respond to the ever-growing demand for bandwidth," said Dieter Verdegem, Vice President of FTTx Access Solutions at CommScope. "It's impossible to ignore when 90 percent of people who answered the survey believe that multi-play operators will merge their fiber networks to cover both FTTH and fiber backhaul for 5G."
The 600 respondents from around the globe who completed the survey are made up of representatives from service providers and vendors in addition to consultants, analysts and enterprise customers. Among other significant findings in the "Broadband Outlook 2016" report:
* 91% of respondents agree that the availability of a dense fiber network is very important in the development of 5G.
* 79% of respondents agree that fiber technology brings, or will bring, benefits in terms of branding/image to their service offering.
* 45% of respondents expect to transition the majority of their network users to FTTH by 2020, and 71% by 2025.
According to the report, 2020 is being "heralded as the year when everything in the world will change for the better," although some operators wish to push up that date. The report goes on to say that the "worlds of fixed and wireless networking appear to be colliding, and operators are ideally positioned to make sense of the chaos."
Telecoms.com Intelligence announced the survey findings at the Broadband World Forum Telecoms Conference in London.
"We are delighted by the industry's unprecedented response to the Broadband Outlook survey, which represents a significant segment of the market," said Tom Skinner, head of intelligence at Telecoms.com. "The results suggest next generation access technology will be very much reliant on a fiber heavy infrastructure, particularly as we move ever closer to the arrival of 5G and the rich forms of content it will be expected to deliver."
