Market overview: How Fibre to the Home and 5G will make faster progress. Cabling for smart buildings. Densifying and automating data centers.
Wetzikon, January 31, 2022. The data and communications network market is looking forward to an innovative year. This is what R&M, the globally active developer and provider of cabling systems for high-quality network infrastructures, based in Wetzikon, Switzerland, expects. Improved products for aerial deployment will help broadband providers roll out Fiber to the Home faster. New technologies such as Single Pair Ethernet are gaining ground in the building cabling market and finally opening the door to digital building management. A new stage in high-speed data transmission is beginning for data centers. They have to comprehensively automate their network management in order to be able to reliably control the growing number of fiber optic cables and plug connections. R&M CMO Andreas Rüsseler is talking about these trends in his Market Outlook blog for 2022. He discusses the latest innovations and their significance for Fiber to the Home, 5G antennas, smart buildings, and data centers.
Fibre to the Home through the air
The telecom industry continues to make major investments in Fiber to the Home (FTTH). But expansion into sparsely populated areas is often not yet viable. «Aerial deployment is an attractive and often the only option for fast and cost-effective FTTH rollouts in remote locations – as long as fiber optic cables and splice closures can be installed with the least possible effort,» says Andreas Rüsseler. This is why new quick mounting technologies, such as those developed by R&M with the ZOONA splice closure, are in demand.
Connectivity technology for 5G antennas
The market launch of 5G technology is causing a wave of investments. Mobile phone companies are building and expanding numerous antenna sites and have to connect them with fiber optic networks – known as Fiber to the Antenna (FTTA). Here, too, innovations inconnection and assembly technology are pushing their way onto the market. They help to set up outdoor infrastructures quickly, safely, and simply.
In this context, Andreas Rüsseler draws attention to a unique opportunity for market participants: «FTTH and FTTA can currently grow together or complement each other. Synergies save development costs.»
Cabling for smart buildings
«The hunger for bandwidth continues in buildings. But today the local data network has to offer more than just bandwidth for the office. We need a comprehensive view of smart buildings and have to integrate more functions and technologies to enable the digitalization of building management,» says Andreas Rüsseler.
Innovations such as Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) will help to transform buildings into smart buildings and operate them automatically. SPE makes it easy to extend building networks to the farthest corners. Andreas Rüsseler is certain that SPE is on the verge of a breakthrough.
Challenges for data centers
In his outlook on the data center market, Andreas Rüsseler looks at the ongoing migration to faster networks. At the moment, it is about the introduction of 400 and 800 Gigabit Ethernet. «Data center providers have to prepare themselves for drastic changes in FO infrastructure. In the rooms and racks, they’ll have to significantly increase cabling and connectivity even further,» explains Andreas Rüsseler.
Innovative optical connector systems play an important role in compression. In dense racks, cables are more difficult to handle. This is why prefabricated cable systems are increasingly being launched on the market. «However, data centers that house hundreds of thousands of fiber optic connections in sensitive operating environments and have to respond to new market requirements on a permanent basis can no longer be managed in the traditional way,» says Andreas Rüsseler. That is why it is important to find the right solutions for automated infrastructure management.
Public Networks: Innovations for Fibre to the Home