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At the recently concluded UBBF 2022, Simon Lin, Senior Vice President of Huawei and President of Huawei Asia-Pacific, outlined a roadmap for operators to unleash the full value of connectivity at various home and enterprise scenarios. In his keynote speech, “Advanced Connectivity, Boost Growth,” Simon Lin also detailed how green networks can underpin the green development of various industries.
Simon Lin elaborated three scenarios wherein operators can monetize home network connections.
Gigabit to Home: In the post pandemic era, homes are evolving into multipurpose centers, and this is driving the demand for gigabit-level connectivity in every household. However, over 1 billion households don’t have access to high-speed connectivity thanks to the higher cost of fiber deployment. In this scenario, large-scale FTTH deployment is crucial to build a positive business cycle from fiber. Deploying optical fiber on a large scale can effectively reduce the cost per line and enable operators to launch gigabit services with higher average revenue per user (ARPU), Simon Lin said.
Driven by the digitization opportunities and economic benefits, over 20 countries have announced 10 gigabit package; and in eight countries, gigabit penetration has exceeded 10 percent of the population. However, the overall gigabit penetration worldwide is below 5 percent of the population. This indicates massive potential for gigabit in home networks. With Gigabit to Home networks, new services such as live streaming will gain popularity.
Gigabit to Room: Gigabit to Room, according to Simon Lin, is the laying foundation of smart homes. Huawei’s all-optical Fiber to the Room (FTTR) service can offer gigabit connections in each room. It can convert a single fiber line into 10 connections, which in turn lead to three times increase in operator’s ARPU. The solution provides unified maintenance with remote home network configuration and O&M capabilities, thereby reducing operators’ maintenance costs by more than 50 percent. The high-quality network and service also reduce customer complaints. As per Huawei’s estimate, nearly 80 percent of subscriber complaints are related to poor room experience.
Bundled Gigabit + Services: Bundled Gigabit + Services is another opportunity wherein operators can combine gigabit home networks with new offerings such as scenario-specific broadband services, bundled Internet services, and bundled smart home device services. However, the requirement may vary for different services. For example, for live streaming, uplink and downlink speed need to be sustained; for remote work, latency is key; and for online learning, network stability and high bandwidth are more important. To cite an example, China Unicom has launched specialized broadband service for live streaming, which is now popular among youngsters. This has helped the operator double its ARPU, Simon Lin added.
In enterprise setting, connectivity upgrade is integral to enable digital transformation. Different industries have different requirements for connectivity; so to meet these requirements, operators need to provide diverse enterprise network connection solutions. Currently, more and more enterprise services are migrating to the cloud, so operators also have to expand their business space to multiple cloud solutions.
Simon Lin noted that operators can monetize enterprise-oriented connections in three ways.
The first approach is to upgrade bandwidth for leased line services. Enterprise leased lines offer high-value margin for operators. As video conferencing and remote working gain popularity in campuses, leased lines will require further bandwidth upgrade. They can also combine services like 5G and Wi-Fi to deliver stronger campus coverage. Leased lines are also used in data centers, where 10 Gbps connectivity is required to offer high-quality connections in and out of campuses and data centers.
Secondly, operators can offer scenario-specific differentiated solutions to meet the diverse requirements of enterprises. Media industry, for example, demand ultra-high bandwidth in the range of 500Gbps, whereas leased lines for futures trading require lower latency. Ultra high availability may be the requirement for financial networks.
Simon Lin highlighted some of the real use cases of scenario-specific solutions. China Telecom, for example, is offering differentiated millisecond-based latency services across different customer segments. The service has helped the carrier earn seven times more revenue. Indosat, a carrier in Indonesia, managed to increase availability for a financial network from three 9’s to five 9’s. Meanwhile, the Security as a Service has brought new business gains for China Telecom.
The third, there is a need to upgrade from private lines to private networks to support multi-cloud access. As many enterprise branches need to access multiple clouds, N x N private lines are required. Operators can use multi-cloud backbone and network slicing technologies to upgrade private lines to private networks, providing deterministic network assurance for enterprises.
Simon Lin also underlined the need to have an all-optical, simplified, and intelligent green networks to enable the green development of various industries. Huawei is cooperating with operators to help the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) to formulate standards and jointly define the network carbon intensity energy (NCIe) indicator system, he added.
“A sculpture lies hidden within a marble block, but only the greatest artist can set it free,” said Simon Lin, implying that operators have the inherent capability to bring unlimited value in connectivity. He added that Huawei will continue to explore connectivity technologies and solutions with customers and partners, and work with operators to promote business growth.
