Re: My opinion
vg this was cornings take on this subject a year ago. i posted it on iv. i view this as how 800mg will be implemented (more fiber/conduits). there is another post i made on the new fiber and how it implements 400mg better than the old fiber but i cant find it. oh well
Thank you, Clark, and good morning. As Clark said and as you saw in the video, some of our customers are already being very clear about the amount of optical fiber and connectivity that their next-generation networks will require. It's important for us to understand the drivers behind this network evolution. Some of you may recall the electrical to optical divide, which is a primary driver of the upward trend that Clark described. It shows that when the product of bandwidth and distance grows beyond about 100 gigabit meters per second, optical wins on tech economics. More links across (inaudible) divide is the basic reason why the optical portion of networks have been capturing more and more of total communications CapEx. We believe this will continue but something else is also happening, particularly with wireless and hyperscale data centers. Service requirements for these 2 spaces are driving the optical signal closer to the edge. Consequently, the density of the supporting optical infrastructure must increase. Similar densification happened with cable TV nodes and even legacy digital subscriber loop networks.
Let's look at what is happening in 5G. I won't repeat the reasons and new services driving the need for a far more capable wireless infrastructure. What I will say is that through 5G must deliver, among other things, higher speeds, lower latency and 100x more bandwidth density. However, today's microcell capacity and density are not adequate to meet these requirements. Network operators must use a combination of more spectrum, advanced modulation techniques and high-density architectures to carry the optical signal deeper into the network, distributed more effectively between several smaller cells. Although you tend to hear more about spectrum options and new transmission technologies, the models that we created together with our customers show that massive network densification is key for true 5G. Moreover, if past is prologue, densification historically has been about 60x more impactful than the other network levers. As an example, in this city, the amount of fiber required to connect all expected 5G cells is almost 100x greater than what was necessary to connect 3G and 4G microcells.
What's the impact to Corning? About 100x more fiber than a 4G network. And to put that in perspective, that's twice the amount of fiber required to deploy fiber to the home in the same area. Wireless will be transformed from a fiber-poor network to a really fiber-rich network. And Corning will be a key part of making this transformation happen.