The future of fiber remains rosy, says Corning

By GRACE F. MURPHY

As one of the world`s top fiber-optic cable manufacturers, Corning Inc. of Corning, NY, has to know where fiber sales will flourish or drop in the future. At its annual media briefing during the Conference on Optical Fiber Communication, held February 23 to 27 in San Jose, CA, the company said 1997 was another good year for fiber--and that the outlook for 1998 appeared to be just as rosy.

Greg Smith, Corning`s manager of product line optics, says worldwide demand for all brands of fiber-optic cable production grew 20% between 1996 and 1997, with 43.9 million km of fiber sold. Of the total sold, 42% of the demand came from the United States and Canada, 20% from western Europe, and 17% from Japan (see Fig. 1).

In North America, the cable-TV field represented the highest share of fiber demand at 26%, closely followed by local-exchange carrier (lec) networks at 25%. An "other" category, which Smith defines as including utilities and singlemode cable exports, took 23% of the share (see Fig. 2).

The North American long-haul market, which made up 11% of total North American fiber demand, showed a 48% increase in deployment over last year. Telecommunications giants at&t, Sprint, and mci continued to upgrade their systems, but new carriers ixc, Qwest, and WorldCom are the biggest market for new fiber, according to Smith. Non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber was the cable of choice about 90% of the time, and Smith anticipates that trend to continue in 1998.

lecs experienced flat growth, primarily due to regulatory uncertainty, merger paralysis, and the distraction of trying to enter the long-distance market, according to Smith. A 5% uptick is anticipated in 1998.

Competitive local-exchange carriers showed 50% growth in 1997, but that increase is expected to decline to 21% growth in 1998. The carriers are interested in new technology, and are expected to look at more urban deployment in the next three to five years as they tie intra-city rings together.

Premises systems, which made up 6% of the North American market, showed 17% growth over last year, primarily in multimode fiber-optic cable. The amount of growth shows that the industry is starting to see fiber-optic cable competing with copper cable in the horizontal network as the use of Gigabit Ethernet expands, Smith says. Another trend to watch is 50-micron fiber coming back into favor, he says. In the "other" category, utilities` demand for fiber grew 40% last year, and the entire category is expected to grow approximately 30% this year.

Worldwide trends

Factors contributing to worldwide growth include the end of state-owned monopolies, worldwide competition, and growth in access lines and increased traffic.

Western Europe accounted for 8.6 million fiber-km, or 20% of worldwide demand in 1997, which constitutes an 8% growth over 1996. Seventy-five percent of the fiber produced in western Europe is used domestically, with the remainder exported. Smith predicts 19% growth in 1998, driven by market deregulation.

Japan accounted for 17% of the world fiber demand in 1997, a total of 7.7 million fiber-km. That represents a 31% annual growth rate, which is down from the 60% growth shown in 1996 over 1995. According to Smith, 85% of the growth this year will occur through domestic deployment. Overall, the country is expected to show 17% growth in fiber demand in 1998.

Other Asia-Pacific countries bought 6.2 million fiber-km in 1997, making up 14% of worldwide demand and an increase of 50% over last year. China has 12 new fiber-optic trunk lines, or 32,000 new route-mi. Demand this year is expected to increase 26%, a figure that is down due to the Southeast Asian financial crisis and postponement of a Thailand fiber-optic network.

Latin America`s 1.3 million fiber-km represents 3% of the worldwide demand for fiber-optic cable, and a 95% annual growth rate over 1996. The growth rate is expected to drop to 9% this year, due to what Smith terms a "period of transition."

The rest of the world market, which represents a 4% demand, or 1.9 million fiber-km, shows a 14% decline in fiber consumption. That isn`t expected to last, as consumption is predicted to jump 20% this year, according to Smith.

Turning a new leaf

In addition to making market predictions based on past performances and the economy, Corning also used the media briefing to unveil a new type of fiber. The so-called leaf (Large Effective Area Fiber) product is a form of non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber with a greater effective area than other dispersion-shifted fiber (see Lightwave, Feb. 1998, page 64). It is intended to meet 1550-nm network design requirements that use high-output-power erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and dense wavelength-division multiplexing. leaf has an effective area of 72 microns2, compared with 55 microns2 for standard non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber. Its area for light transmission is 32% larger than that of traditional non-zero dispersion-shifted fiber.

Curt Weinstein, product manager for high-data-rate applications for Corning`s Telecommunications Projects Div., says the company expects the demand for leaf to grow as long-distance companies build more high-performance networks.

Weinstein says the industry`s need for leaf comes from the advance of electronic technology and increased intensity from dense wavelength-division multiplexing and erbium-doped fiber amplifier technologies. An advantage of leaf, according to company officials, is that the fiber allows more power to be pumped in, and that it allows longer distances between amplifiers without unwanted nonlinear effects.

The product is expected to be 13% less expensive over an 11-year period, based on installation and regular upgrade costs, compared to the company`s Single-Mode Fiber-28. The leaf cable itself is more expensive than its counterpart, but it requires fewer electronic components when deployed.

Pirelli Cables and Systems North America, Lexington, SC, has announced it will make leaf available for its fiber-optic products. Corning officials say that there are customers already testing the fiber in their networks, but declined to say more. Talks are also under way with new carrier Level 3. "We`re ready to serve them," says Dale Niebur, product line manager for telecommunications fiber. q