Prefatory Note

Featured Topic:
Efforts toward Building Higher-Speed Broadband Optical Networks

Atsushi YANOManaging Director
Deputy General Manager, R&D General Managing Unit
General Manager, Infocommunications and Social Infrastructure Systems R&D CenterWith the collapse of the conventional telecommunication carrier business model based on distance-based time
duration billing system, Internet Protocol (IP) services withmonthly flat-rate pricing are rapidly growing. Owing to theaccelerating progress in the performance of digital processors and memory, expansion of communication line bandwidth with the use of optical fiber cables, and great advances
in mobile terminals as a result of progress in mobile radio
telecommunication technologies, business models of communication carriers are dramatically changing to service
provider models that can cover sharp drops in unit priceper bit using profits from cloud services as well as content
and applications. At the same time, this has presented ahuge challenge to the global business models of infocommunication system vendors and parts device vendors, which
has led to significant changes in technological development
and product strategies as described below.

1. Challenges Faced in Product Technology
Development in the Infocommunication Area
1-1 Challenges faced with communication traffic volume
In 2007, the world’s urban population exceeded rural
population, and mega-cities with populations over 10 million are seen forming around the world with the growth of
emerging economies. It is predicted that by 2030, morethan 60% of people on earth will be concentrated in cities,
and urban problems caused by the excessive concentrationof population, energy, and commodities in these cities will
become an even greater global challenge than today.
As of 2012, there were 26 mega-city metropolitan areas
with populations exceeding 10 million people around theworld. The world’s largest mega-city is metropolitan Tokyo(37 million). The growth rate of mobile network traffic(monthly) in the five years from 2012 to 2017 in the TokyoNagoya-Osaka zone, which is only 550 km long zone but
houses Japan’s three largest mega-cities, is predicted to be
18-fold, greater than the growth rate of the world’s mobile
IP traffic of 12.4 times (Cisco Visual Networking Index Mobile Data Traffic Forecast and Methodology, 2012–2017).
With carriers reporting that the traffic of the mobile IPbackbone in the Tokyo metropolitan area is doubling every
year, the increased usage of 4G smartphones and mobile

6 · Prefatory Notetablets and rapid increase in user-generated payroads withvideo multimedia like YouTube and social media have led
to a concentration of traffic in cloud data centers, such that
ICT industries worldwide are now faced with a massive volume challenge.
1-2 Challenge of dealing with the transition from mobile
to an M2M, connected world
The change in our lifestyles from one where people
used to talk to others when they had to (= communicationlink (Call)) to one where we always want to be connected
to someone (= always-connected (Wi-Fi IP)) has resulted in
the need to overcome time differences and regional differences brought about by the change from human-to-humancommunication to human-to-machine communication, as
well as the simultaneity of the formation and awareness ofglobal communities due to the spread of personal media
like Twitter and Facebook. Furthermore, advances in sensor
technology and the great strides made in processor, memory, network technologies that enable real-time accumulation and processing of massive amounts of data have led tothe rapid increase in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication needs. This has expanded to smart cities including
smart cars (connected cars), smart homes (connectedhomes), Intelligent Transport System (ITS; interconnectedcars, traffic lights, and road infrastructures), and healthmonitoring of bridges and infrastructures, in efforts to respond to the needs of resolving social issues such as energy
savings, CO2 reduction, and efficient investment in the conservation of aging infrastructures. This trend of accelerated
expansion of the scope has led to a dramatic increase in thetelecommunication network scale that had until now been
restricted by the number of households, as well as in thenumber of network terminals that need to be managed by
IP addresses and the scale (number, volume, time) of data
centers that integrate and manage generated traffic data
[massive data processing in cloud data centers], thereby
posing a huge challenge to the information communication
infrastructures supporting them.
1-3 Security challenges
While convenience has dramatically improved withmany users using similar basic software accompanying theincreased use of the Internet on PCs, the risks of hackingwhere people with malicious intent invade our systems arealso increasing, so that ensuring information security is now

a huge challenge. Since diverse social infrastructure systems
are globally linked by IP networks, and the use of IP services
based on mobile networks is increasing, security threats thatare hard to detect are on the rise around the world. Various
efforts are thus being made to tackle this security problem
in each layer of networks and applications from the electrophysical layer of high-speed broadband IP networks.

and long-distance communication device product technology to deal with the increasing transmission capacity of backbone networks, and short-distance high-speed broadband
optical transmission device product technology aroundcloud data centers (see Fig. 1, items ① to ⑪ in the figure
correspond to items ① to ⑪ below).
First, with optical fiber cable product technology, we introduce: ① optical Thunderbolt cable for PCs and peripheral devices requiring high-speed broadband networking forvideo distribution and other services; ② ultra-large capacity
multi-core fiber enabling transmission of rapidly increasing
backbone IP traffic; ③ connector-type optical branchingparts for connecting multi-core fiber to optical transmission
units and conventional single mode fiber; and ④ thin highdensity optical fiber cable for efficient and low-cost Fiber tothe Home (FTTH) construction work. With access network
system product technology, the following are introduced:⑤ FTTH system for vendors of optical CATV networks; and⑥ improvement of operations by vendors of Passive Optical Network (PON) systems for subscribers of optical networks to realize 10 Gbit/s high-speed IP communication.
Then with mid- and long-distance communication device
product technology supporting digital coherency, the following are discussed: ⑦ IC technology for controlling 100
Gbit/s coherent communication tunable laser oscillation
wavelengths; ⑧ 200 kHz linewidth tunable laser realizing
high-speed communication by 100 Gbit/s phase modulation; and ⑨ device for receiving and converting 100 Gbit/s
coherent light to electrical signals for mid- and long-distancetrunk communication systems. Finally, with short-distancehigh-speed broadband optical transmission device producttechnology, the following are discussed: ⑩ low-powerconsumption compact light transceiver for single-mode fiberconnecting data centers internally or with other data centersat short distance; and ⑪ vertical cavity surface emitting laser(VCSEL) for ultra-high-speed multi-mode fiber communication at data centers, and a reception photodiode.
There are many other technologies related to highspeed broadband such as important optical technologies
like low-loss optical fibers that could not be taken up in thisissue due to the timing of disclosing their details. We hope
to report on these technologies including the many technologies and products introduced above in future issue.

2. Sumitomo Electric’s R&D Strategies in
the Infocommunication Area andIntention of the Featured TopicTo deal with the three challenges given above by meeting the needs for even faster broadband in optical networks
that support the increased usage of various broadband data,such as video distribution by general households, companies, and governments, and the use of cloud and massive
data volumes, Sumitomo Electric is conducting extensive
R&D work and commercialization of innovative products.
Specifically, we are carrying out research and development of: user home equipment product technologies suchas smart home service gateways and video set-top boxes; optical fiber cables and access network devices; optical devices
for backbone networks; optical transmission devices forcloud data centers; M2M communication technology; various sensor technologies; ITS technology as a social infrastructure system supporting smart mobility; security
application package products for companies; on-vehicle
radars; satellite communication composite semiconductor
wireless devices; etc.
Of this broad range of R&D efforts being carried out,
the Featured Topic focuses on next-generation opticaltechnologies for supporting high-speed broadband in IP
networks for which efforts are being made to deal with therapid increase in communication traffic.
As described below, we undertook the development of
11 technologies spanning four areas, namely: optical fiber
cable product technology aimed at reducing the cost of access networks and transmission of greater information volumes, access network system product technology aimed at
optical CATV and the construction of 10 Gbit/s high-speed
broadband access networks, digital coherent method mid-[Increase in backbone network transmission capacity]
Coherent method mid- and long-distance communication
device product technologies x 3 (⑦,⑧,⑨)

Satellitecommunication
Wireless communication
trunk line network
Ultra Long Haul
Long Haul

On-vehicle
radarWireless LAN

Optical communication
trunk line network
Wireless communication(DWDM)
network between
base stations

Optical communication
network (Metro)[Optical CATV]
Optical communication[Construction of 10 Gb/s high-speed network inside companies
broadband access network](Data centers)
Subscribers of optical Access network system product(Router)
communication (Access) technologies x 2 (⑤,⑥)
Mobile phonebase station[Access network][Transmission of massive data]
Optical fiber cable producttechnologies x 4(①,②,③,④)(Switch)(Server)[Around cloud data centers]
Short-distance high-speed broadband
optical transmission device producttechnologies x 2 (⑩,⑪)

Fig. 1. Sumitomo Electric’s IP network related products and papers featured in this issue

SEI TECHNICAL REVIEW · NUMBER 77 · OCTOBER 2013 · 7