Broadband Networks in the Next Decade: Trends, Challenges and Evolution

Broadband Trends in the Next Decade: Disappearing Broadband VS Ubiquitous Videos

Ten years from now, broadband will disappear from people's awareness and become a kind of nature infrastructure. The word "install broadband" will sound as strange as the word "have electricity" by now. In the next decade, videos will evolve from today's popular applications to fundamental capabilities or carriers that can be called by most information services. There will be ubiquitous, IP-based, ultra high definition (UHD), and virtual videos.
●   Ubiquitous video: Video will be greatly enriched, traditional graphic information will be visualized, and video will become a basic capability freely called by a variety of applications.
●   IP video: The current widely-deployed satellite TV, cable TV and digital terrestrial TV will be gradually replaced by IP videos. The IP videos based on broadband networks will dominate the market.
●   UHD video: The maturing large-size TV/projector/virtual imaging technology and the improved user consumability will make 4K to 8K/8K+ TV more valuable. Compared with the existing 24p/30p/60p (24/30/60 progressive scanning frames per second), 120p is a stunning presentation of the real world, as evidenced in a 2016 film of the director Ang Lee. 120p will be another major direction of video experience enhancement in the next decade.
●   Virtual video: As virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) give a new dimension for people to perceive the world, video forms and contents will be vastly expanded and its experience will also undergo profound changes.

Accelerated Traffic Growth Can Hardly Meet Future Business Needs

As video is IP-based, the video content is decoupled from its medium, and satellite TV, cable TV and digital terrestrial TV gradually converge to broadband TV, broadband video users are expected to increase by 10-fold. In the next decade, video quality will evolve to that of two to three generations levels, and bandwidth demand is estimated to increase by 20-fold. With ubiquitous video scenarios and visualized information, it is estimated there will be a five-fold growth in video usage. In summary, there will be a 1,000-fold increase in the total volume of broadband traffic and a 100-fold rise in average traffic per user.
The past 20 years have witnessed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 40% in the bandwidth demand of home broadband users. This means a 10-fold increase in the bandwidth demand every seven years. Driven by strong video consumption, the bandwidth demand will grow at a CAGR of 60%, a 10-fold increase in every five years. Each broadband technology will be upgraded with 4-fold or 10-fold capability enhancement. As the broadband technology accelerates its upgrade pace, it will have a shorter lifecycle. One upgrade every five years will present huge challenges to technologies, products and networks.

Dominant Video Streaming Leads to Changes in Network Architecture and Traffic Bearing Mode

A video-dominant broadband network no longer has an obvious statistical multiplexing effect. Web traffic such as internet browsing, email and instant messaging is mainly delivered in bursts, resulting in dozens of times of statistical multiplexing efficiency and highly efficient multi-level IP convergence. By contrast, video services require steady bandwidth occupation for a long time span which takes dozens of seconds to minutes. That makes the statistical multiplexing effect not obvious and IP convergence less meaningful.
Operators can move the content distribution network (CDN) of their self-operated video service (IPTV) to IP network edges to prevent inefficient convergence. However, large amounts of third-party video content cannot be moved to edge nodes. This poses a tough challenge to video bearing in the traditional network architecture.
In the future, a metropolitan area network (MAN) will be centered on data centers. All the large-granularity content can be implemented in local data centers, while the vast majority of traffic can be implemented in data centers within the MAN. As a result, user traffic routes can be drastically simplified and the network architecture can be maximally flattened.

Diverse Broadband Scenarios Give Rise to 5G-like Differentiated Service Features

Just like 5G, fixed broadband in the future will spawn diverse application scenarios and generate differentiated service features. Specifically, the service feature for big video that needs high bandwidth is enhanced fixed broadband (eFBB); that for massive smart home appliances access and interconnection is massive machine-type communication (mMTC); that for highly reliable enterprise private line is ultra-reliable communications (uRC); that for the delay-sensitive industrial internet scenario is low latency communications (LLC); and that for virtual reality that needs both high bandwidth and low latency is eFBB & LLC. Different application scenarios have different network features, require different management modes and put in different expenditures. The highly virtual technology is used to achieve differentiated features on individual devices and networks and to meet different service requirements at the most appropriate expenses.

Forward Inter-Generational Compatibility Reduces the Number of Frequent Equipment Iterations

To achieve inter-generational compatibility and support future two generations of technologies, new-generation broadband network products need to discard traditional technology and product design ideas. The new products have to double their prime of life to satisfy service requirements for the next decade.
Therefore, for upgrading to a new technology, only new software and boards need to be developed. The equipment upgrade is completed by deploying new boards on the existing network and upgrading its software. This avoids tedious work, low efficiency and high costs caused by installing new equipment, reconnecting wires and migrating services.
ZTE's new-generation flagship optical access product, TITAN, is compatible with three generations of technologies: GPON, 10G PON and 100G PON. TITAN adopts a fully distributed switching architecture that is four-fold the capacity of the industry's highest level. TITAN aims to meet service requirements for the next decade in terms of product architecture and design capacity.

Combo PON Offers a General Solution for Smooth Technology Upgrade

For two generations of technologies that are not fully compatible with each other, technology upgrade at a network level is extremely difficult. The upgrade is made either by very complex technologies and at high costs to achieve compatibility of massive user-end devices, or by an overlay network to migrate users over a long time period. For example, for upgrade from GPON to XG-PON, it is necessary to add new XG-PON products and combiners in the GPON equipment room and reconnect hundreds of optical fibers. This increases optical line loss that may cause service unavailability to existing users.
ZTE has developed Combo PON that integrates two generations of PON technologies and combiner modules into one optical module. Through physical equipment integration and logical compatibility, Combo PON completely addresses the issue of incompatible technical standards on the equipment. The innovative Combo PON also offers the industry a common efficient solution for the compatibility issue that may occur again in the next decade.

Finding an Optimal Path for Carrying Large-Granularity Traffic to Reduce Invaluable Intermediate Nodes

Since its statistical multiplexing effect is no longer obvious, and its routes are short and simple (most video traffic is terminated at the data centers within a MAN and is chiefly concentrated in dozens of data centers), video traffic is quite suitable for direct transport over IP to data centers without the need of intermediate IP convergence and handling. In terms of video route, the MAN is fully flattened. Moreover, the deployment of SDN technology allows the transport pipe to be flexibly adjusted, enables statistical multiplexing at the service level, and thus makes the network more efficient.
To reap these benefits, an optical transport network (OTN) has to be moved down to the access equipment room. Though this trend is widely accepted in the industry, it will take time to turn it into reality because of considerable investments and great changes to network architecture.
ZTE's TITAN offers a brand-new approach to addressing this issue. In addition to optical access, TITAN has embedded OTN functionality and provides OTN boards to achieve high integration across network layers. With enormous design capacity, TITAN can be deployed at an edge data center (EDC). This reduces the number of network elements by an order of magnitude as compared to moving the OTN down to the access equipment room.
TITAN based on router architecture supports complete IP functions and acts as the forwarding plane of a broadband network gateway (BNG) to compress two original network layers (OLT-BNG) into one. With cloud optical access, TITAN enables more efficient sharing at the user level and in different application scenarios, which boosts network resource utilization. It is estimated that by re-architecturing network based on TITAN's integrated access and transport, compressing the access layers and reducing IP dependency, the cost of deploying an end-to-end broadband network can decrease by 50%.
In the coming decade, as high-speed broadband prevails, users will be less concerned about broadband networks, and yet the industry will face unprecedented challenges. Drawing on its deep insights into the industry trends and challenges for the next decade, ZTE has made brave explorations in technical innovation, product design, and network re-architecture. Its one-generation broadband product that is backward compatible with two generations of technologies can keep up with the quickening pace of technology upgrade; its Combo PON simplifies network upgrade; its virtualization technology brings broadband out of home to offer IoT ubiquitous connectivity; and its deep integration of access, transport and routing makes the network completely flat.
We call on all partners in the industry to jointly rise against the incoming traffic tsunami, enjoy a superior experience brought by ultra-broadband information services, and create limitless business opportunities in the next decade.