In the executive meeting of the State Council on May 13, Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang reemphasized that, we should speed up broadband network construction, speed up the upgrading and reconstruction of broadband facilities in those regions with weak foundation such as the rural area, and drive various investments this year to be up to a trillion yuan. Because optical fiber and cable was the significant footstone for “broadband China”, the related optical fiber and cable enterprises would benefit from trillion yuan of investment.
As for boosting FTTH and rural broadband project, and speeding up all-fiber network city and 4G network construction, the State Council put forward specific goal this time, namely, to increase 14,000 administrative villages connecting broadband this year, shrink “digital divide” between urban and rural areas, as well as support bandwidth expansion at international entrance and exit of internet, and drive various investments this year to be up to a trillion yuan.
Broadband network is the strategic public infrastructure in economic and social development of our country, and developing broadband network has significant supporting function in driving effective investment and promoting information consumption, and boosting transformation in development mode and well-off society construction.
From the global perspective, broadband network is driving a new round of wave of informatization development. Numerous countries regard the development of broadband network as the priority of action area in strategic deployment, as well as a significant measure to seize the commanding point of international economy, science and technology and industry during the new period.
From the aspect of entire industrial chain for communication, to speed up high- speed broadband network construction will be beneficial to business transformation of communication equipment suppliers and service providers, state-owned enterprise reform, etc., and private broadband communication enterprises will also benefit from it.
In order to realize the national strategy of “broadband China”, fiber access is the significant footstone. As shown in statistic data from MIIT, in 2014, the newly-established optical cable line throughout the country reached 3.007 million km, and the total length of optical cable line reached 20.46 million km, with 17.2% of year-on-year growth rate, and fell 0.7 percent back compared with the same period of last year.
The domestic demands of optical fiber and cable became stable, and presents healthy development trend as a whole. In the central purchasing of CMCC and China Telecom, enterprises such as Fiberhome Telecommunication, Hengtong Optic-electric Co., Ltd., YOFC, ZTT, Tongding Optic-electric Co., Ltd., ZHONGLI SCI-TECH, Potevio, Kangning, benefit obviously from it. Enterprises such as YOFC, hengtong Optic-electric Co., Ltd., Fiberhome Telecommunication, Futong, have stronger international competitiveness.
Meanwhile, we have to be aware that, the domestic price competition of optical fiber and cable is still very severe, and excess production capacity is still the greatest impact. As shown in statistic data, in 2014, the total demand in domestic optical fiber and cable market was about 140 to 150 million cores per kilometer, while the productivity of domestic enterprises had reached to 240 million cores per kilometer.
For optical fiber and cable enterprises, to continue to devote more efforts to “broadband China” strategy, is an opportunity, as well as a challenge. Under the competition environment with surplus productivity, only by speeding up technical transformation, optimizing product mix, and strengthening enterprise competitiveness, can we stand firm within constant shuffle in optical fiber and cable market.
