Views: 137 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2020-07-09 Origin: Site
Optical fiber cable has become one of the key points of 5G competition. As we all know, 5G network will provide consumers with more reliable and powerful connections, and provide high-speed and low latency services. However, in order to achieve this, due to the high 5G frequency band and limited network coverage, more 5G base stations will be built. It is estimated that by 2025, the total number of 5G base stations in the world will reach 6.5 million, which puts forward higher requirements for the performance and production of optical fiber cables. Five types of 5G optical fiber cables are described below.
The dense optical fiber connection between massive 5G new micro base station and indoor micro base station is the main challenge of 5G access network construction. Complex cabling environments, especially indoor optical cabling, require high bending performance in limited space. Optical fiber compliant ITU G.657.A2/B2/B3 has great bend-improved performance, which can be stapled and bent around corners without sacrificing performance. Many fiber manufacturers have announced low loss bend-insensitive fiber (BIF) cables to solve these problems in 5G indoor applications.
5G service providers must also focus on building fiber optical networks in data centers that store content. At present, the transmission speed of data centers is evolving from 10G/25G, 40G/I00G to 25G/I00G, 200G/400G, which put forward new requirements for the multimode optical fibers used for interconnection inside the data centers. Multimode fibers need to be compatible with existing Ethernet standards, cover higher speeds such as upgrades to 400G and 800G in the future, support multi-wavelength multiplexing technologies such as SWDM and BiDi, and provide excellent bend resistance to accommodate dense data center wiring scenarios.
The deployment environment of 5G hosting network access layer or convergence layer is complex, and it is easy to encounter problems such as limited resources of existing wired pipelines. To ensure that the limited space can accommodate more fibers, cable manufacturers are working to reduce the size and diameter of the cable bundle. For example, recently the Prysmian Group has introduced the BendBright XS 180µm single-mode fiber to meet the 5G technology demands. This innovative optical fiber enables cable designers to maintain a glass diameter of 125 microns while offering significantly reduced cable sizes.
5G fiber manufacturers are actively exploring ultra-low loss (ULL) fiber technology to maximize fiber coverage. G.654.E optical fiber is such an innovative 5G fiber. Unlike G.652.D fibers commonly used for 10G, 25G, 100G, G.652.E fibers have larger effective area and ultra-low loss characteristics, which can significantly reduce the non-linear effect of the fibers and improve the OSNR in 200G, 400G connections that are susceptible to higher signal modulation formats.
The 5G network deployment covers both indoor and outdoor scenarios, and installation speed is a factor to consider. Full-dry optical fiber cables with dry water plugging technology can improve the splicing speed of optical fiber cables during the installation process. Air-blown micro cables are compact, lightweight and contain high fiber density to maximize the number of fibers. This type of cable is easy to install in long pipelines with multiple bends and undulations. This installation method can save manpower, installation time and increase installation efficiency. For outdoor optical fiber cable laying, some anti-rat, anti-bird optical fiber cables are also required.
