Two Departments Announce Special Notice on Network Action: Fiber Cable Industry Gains New Momentum for Development

On May 8, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued a circular on the "2019 Special Action on Further Promoting Broadband Network Speed Increase and Cost Reduction to Support High-quality Economic Development".
The key tasks assigned by the notice mainly include the following parts:
(a) to carry out gigabit broadband home demonstration.  We will promote basic telecommunications enterprises to deploy gigabit broadband access networks in more than 300 cities, with gigabit broadband coverage reaching more than 20 million users.  400,000 new gigabit broadband users (including home users and government and enterprise users) were added throughout the year.  We will continue to promote the construction of fiber-to-the-home systems in residential and commercial buildings, and expand the coverage of fiber-optic broadband, with fiber access ports accounting for more than 90%.
(2) Improve the deep coverage of 4G networks and speed up the 5G construction process.  The 4G coverage rate of administrative villages exceeded 98%.  Over 600,000 4G base stations were expanded and newly built throughout the year.  Efforts will be made to build 5G quality network, guide all localities to do a good job in 5G base station site planning and other work, and further optimize the 5G development environment.

(3) Continuously improve the network architecture.  Further push forward the expansion of bandwidth between backbone networks to achieve an expansion of 2500G g.
(4) Enhance Internet application capability.  We will guide and support Internet enterprises to strengthen the construction of CDN (Content Delivery Network) nodes in the central and western provinces and northeast regions, push CDN to extend to the edge of the network, realize high-speed access and nearby access to Internet information sources, and continuously improve users' online experience.
(5) Promoting the vigorous development of mobile Internet of Things applications.  Facing the application requirements of mobile Internet of Things such as logistics, NB-IoT network capabilities will be further upgraded and NB-IoT network coverage will be continuously improved.  Encourage cooperation between industries and all parties in the industrial chain, promote the development of application scale such as car networking and industrial internet, and support intelligent manufacturing.
In terms of distance education network coverage, it is required to achieve a broadband network access rate of 97% or more in primary and secondary schools across the country, with a universal access capacity of 100 megabytes.  To improve the capability of telemedicine network, it is required to continuously improve the broadband network coverage level of medical institutions in rural areas.  In addition, the two departments continue to implement the speed-up and fee-reduction policies announced during the 2019 NPC and CPPCC sessions, namely, the average broadband charges for small and medium-sized enterprises will be reduced by 15%, the roaming charges for traffic between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao will be reduced by 30%, and the average charges for mobile network traffic will be reduced by more than 20%.
Only two months before the end of the two sessions in 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the SASAC have decided to carry out the above tasks and special actions, reflecting the country's high attention to network construction and the urgent requirement for high-quality development.  Judging from the contents of the notice, this special action is quite specific, covering not only 4G, 5G, industrial Internet and Internet of Things, but also broadband network access rate in primary and secondary schools, telemedicine and remote rural areas.

Data show that FTTH users in China reached 384.14 million in the first quarter, with 312.04 million users above 100M rate and 5.91 million xDSL users.  At present, FTTH network construction in our country is no longer satisfied with 100 megabytes, but is being rolled out at a gigabyte rate in more than 300 cities across the country.
In 2018, the country saw a net increase of 290,000 mobile communication base stations, totaling 6.48 million.  Among them, 4G base stations have a net increase of 439,000, bringing the total to 3.72 million.  More than 600,000 new 4G base stations will be built in 2019, which shows on the one hand that China's 4G construction is more intensive than last year, and on the other hand, the number of 4G base stations in 2019 will reach at least 4.32 million.
Network construction cannot do without the support of optical fiber and cable.  Under the current conditions, 5G has not yet been put into commercial use, but China's network construction is still continuing. In particular, the deployment of gigabit broadband in more than 300 cities and special actions such as 4G deep coverage will have a certain impact on the current optical fiber and cable industry market and will add a certain momentum of development again.
Source: China Wire and Cable Network