At present, the amount of global Internet data is experiencing explosive growth, especially the rapid growth of transnational traffic. It is expected that by 2018, Internet data traffic will increase to 14GB per capita. This growth will undoubtedly bring about capacity problems.
Building/upgrading submarine cables has become a general trend in transnational traffic. In 2016, more than 97% of the world's international data traffic was transmitted through submarine cable systems.
So far, more than 230 submarine cables have been built around the world, and more than 10 submarine cables are under construction.
The total length of my country’s coastline is 32,000 km, the mainland coastline is 18,000 km, and the island coastline is 14,000 km. The construction of an independent marine optical cable network will effectively reduce users’ international roaming charges and bring many benefits.
From the perspective of market size, analysis reports from research institutions show that the annual sales volume of terminal equipment of submarine cable systems alone is nearly 600 million U.S. dollars, and the total annual sales volume of the submarine cable system market reaches more than 10 billion U.S. dollars.
At the recently held "China Marine Information Network Alliance Preparatory Conference and Summit Forum", Gao Junshi from the Cable Research Institute of China Mobile Communications Group Design Institute said that since 1993, my country has built the first international cross-border maritime Cable, it has been 24 years so far.
The construction peak period was from 1993 to 2001. After that, the construction speed slowed down, and after 2008, a new round of construction peak period ushered in.
Currently, many international submarine cables are about to enter the "retirement period."
Coupled with the frequent occurrence of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis in recent years or unintentional damage to offshore operations, international communications have been slowed down or even interrupted, which has also highlighted the shortcomings of international submarine cable construction.
At the same time, as submarine cable technology and systems continue to mature, the construction of international submarine cables is entering a period of upgrading.
In recent years, my country has put forward the strategy of "marine power". Under the background of the accelerated advancement of the national "One Belt, One Road" strategy and the accelerated improvement of domestic technology product reserves, the demand for submarine cables is expected to usher in explosive growth.
As marine communications play an increasingly important role in the fields of national defense, offshore oil, and ocean monitoring, strengthening the research and development of key technologies and improving marine communication support capabilities have become strategic tasks for the communications industry.
Under this situation, building or upgrading submarine cable systems will be the general trend.
The construction of my country's independent submarine cable system is urgent. According to geographical conditions, there are three parts of the sea area for my country's construction of submarine cables. : Asia-Pacific, Trans-Pacific, Southeast Asia-Middle East-Europe
Wang Guangquan of China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute said that global submarine cable construction has entered its peak period, and the compound annual growth rate of international bandwidth in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Both are about 50%, larger than other regions.
International submarine cables are important international infrastructure, and international submarine cable systems play an increasingly important role in global economic development.
According to Chang Weiguo, Network Development and Product Development Department of China Telecom International Co., Ltd., the construction and maintenance methods of international submarine cables are completely different from those of terrestrial optical cable systems.
In the international submarine cable industry, technology and economics are important. Changes in business, regulation, and stakeholders have brought the international submarine cable industry to the 2.0 era, which requires continuous upgrading.
Submarine cables are known as the "top of the pyramid" in the field of optical transmission.
Submarine cables face various challenges: the manufacturing length of a single submarine cable connection is long; the reliability requirements are extremely high and the quality risk is high; the water density requirements are high and need to withstand water pressure at a depth of more than 3000m; the terrain is complex and the climate is changeable. It is difficult to lay and make factory joints; power transmission, information transmission and system monitoring require multi-functional integration
Ocean photoelectric transmission products and systems are recognized by countries around the world as having high technical difficulty and wide industrial coverage. Large-scale system engineering, and cable products and accessories, system design and equipment, and marine construction have long been monopolized by foreign countries.
Accelerate technology research and development, provide large-capacity ultra-long-distance transmission optical cables, and enhance submarine construction. Construction and maintenance capabilities have become a top priority for the development of submarine cables.
There are two ways to lay submarine cables: one is to manufacture optical cables on the ship and lay them while manufacturing; the second is to manufacture optical cables on land. , Coastal laying.
Submarine cable laying is divided into shallow sea optical cable laying and deep sea optical cable laying. The laying of shallow sea optical cables is generally done by underwater robots, while the laying of deep sea optical cables is laid directly without trenches.
p>Zhao Zisen, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that China does not have its own coastal submarine cable system and the situation is not optimistic.
At the same time, “Chinese companies have currently invested in 250,000 km of submarine cable projects, but Among them, very few Chinese contractors are constructing, and most submarine cable projects are constructed by European, American and Japanese manufacturers such as NEC, Alcatel, and TE. It is hoped that this deadlock can be broken as soon as possible.
" Gao Junshi said.
Asia-Africa-Europe Submarine Cable 1 will be completed by the end of 2017. From the perspective of submarine cable communication technology and standard progress , ITU has completed the standardization work for 100G and OADM technology submarine cable applications. OpenCable is currently a hot spot in submarine cable construction and is in the process of standardization.
Since 2013, 100G technology has been introduced into submarine cable systems. Including PM-QPSK and DC-PM-BPSK, it can be upgraded based on the existing 10G system, or a new 100G system can be built.
Currently, international connection bandwidth needs to be increased. As 100G services become the mainstream of international interconnection, there is an urgent need. More 100G large-granularity channels need to be opened, and subsequent network construction and bandwidth purchases will focus on 100G.
OADM technology has also begun to be introduced into submarine cable systems with relays, which can improve system capacity and utilization.
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Super 100G technology is being further demonstrated and will soon be introduced into submarine cable systems.
At the same time, submarine cable systems need to increase routing, improve protection capabilities, and improve international circuit security.
Our country is currently in a period of intensive construction of international submarine cables. Taking China Unicom as an example, through investment or purchase, China Unicom’s existing submarine cable capacity exceeds 12T, covering more than 26 submarine cable systems.
my country Unicom currently has a number of submarine cables under construction. Among them, the AAE-1 (Asia-Africa-Europe 1) submarine cable has a total length of 22,000 km and is expected to be completed by the end of 2017. After the construction is completed, China Unicom will form the Americas, Africa and Europe. Dual submarine cable coverage in the direction of East Asia, ASEAN, the Middle East, and Europe, with full 100G business provision capabilities, provides infrastructure support for the implementation of the national "One Belt, One Road" strategy.
The full length of the NCP optical cable runs from Shanghai to the United States. 12,000 km, expected to be completed by the end of 2017; the SAIL optical cable, with a total length of 5,800 km from Brazil to Cameroon, is expected to be completed in 2019; the HKA submarine cable, with a total length of 13,000 km from Hong Kong to the United States, is expected to be completed in 2020.
Wang Guangquan said that relying on the national "One Belt, One Road" strategy, China Unicom will actively carry out integrated construction and layout of sea and land, so that submarine cable systems and terrestrial cable systems can cooperate with each other, gradually improve the construction of optical transmission networks, and build high-speed networks that are based in China and radiate around the world. and high-quality transmission network platform
MajorManufacturers have begun to actively deploy. As a major maritime country, my country's submarine cable market is currently facing important development opportunities, which also brings opportunities to my country's optical communications companies.
Among them, manufacturers such as Zhongtian, Hengtong, and Fenghuo have begun to actively develop submarine cable products to improve their marine communication construction and maintenance capabilities. Their products have successfully entered the international high-end market.
The establishment of the China Marine Information Network Alliance on June 7 is also expected to gather relevant forces in the industry chain and quickly enhance my country's competitiveness in the international submarine cable market.
According to Zhao Zisen, FiberHome Communications is working hard to develop submarine cable products. Among them, FiberHome Marine Network Equipment Company has invested 2 billion yuan in building a submarine cable base in Zhuhai, Guangdong to produce submarine cables. The annual output of submarine cables is expected to be 1 Thousands of kilometers long, the annual output of repeaters is 100 pieces.
Chen Wei, chief engineer of Jiangsu Hengtong Optical Fiber Technology Co., Ltd. pointed out that submarine cables will inevitably bear a lot of weight during the construction process of laying and recycling due to their own weight, repeaters and branches. Great tensile force.
In extreme cases, the optical fiber in the submarine cable may also be affected, thereby reducing the optical transmission performance, or even breaking at the fiber's strength weakness or fusion splice point.
Due to the differences in high-temperature injection molding of joint boxes, storage, and regional and sea environments, the optical fibers in submarine cables should maintain good performance in complex environments with high and low temperatures and long-term high and low temperature changes.
To deal with this series of problems, Hengtong launched high-reliability marine optical fibers SeaComG.654.B and BoneComG.652.D.
Not only does it actively launch marine optical fiber products, but more importantly, Hengtong also builds a whole industry chain to realize the localization of marine optical fiber and support the development and growth of the submarine cable industry.
A few days ago, Hengtong’s new marine optical fiber successfully passed the 30-day international sea trial of submarine optical fiber cable jointly conducted by Hengtong and Huawei. The success of this sea trial will break the foreign monopoly and help localized high-reliability marine optical fiber to advance globally. Marine communications "blue ocean".
In addition, Hengtong has independently developed a complete set of submarine cable production lines and core process technologies. The length of the weldless submarine cable is 245km, creating the longest process technology for a single optical cable in the world.
Zhongtian Technology has a profound accumulation in the field of submarine cables. As early as 2007, Zhongtian Technology’s deep-sea optical cable and connector box products passed the appraisal. Deep-sea optical cable products can be laid at a water depth of 5,000 meters. The optical cable connector box reaches 8000 meters watertight condition.
This major innovation is the first of its kind in China, breaking the monopoly of foreign products and attracting great attention from the industry.
At present, Zhongtian Technology has made another major breakthrough and has mastered the key technologies of domestic deep-sea optical cables. Its technology and product research and development are moving from "kilometer level" to "10,000 meter level".
Although there are still many technical, system, maintenance and other problems in the submarine cable field,It needs to be solved, but I believe that with the joint efforts of operators, equipment manufacturers, construction companies and other industry chains, these problems will be resolved one by one, and the submarine cable market will also usher in a new golden era
