Huawei to introduce FTTR to the world at MWC

Huawei will be releasing a fibre-to-the-room (FTTR) Gigabit all-optical room solution at MWC 2022.

According to the company, networks at home and at work now have to deal with more demanding services that require higher network latency, bandwidth, and lower jitter than normal, including cloud-based desktops, online education, live broadcasts, videoconferncing, 8KHD movies, immersive entertainment and smart homes.

Huawei cites statistics showing that 60% of broadband faults are caused by a poor Wi-Fi experience, and that Wi-Fi coverage in more than half of homes is only 55%. Common challenges include:

- Outdated networking cables that limit the bandwidth to only 100 Mbps. 
 

- Seamless roaming is impossible as traditional networking does not support intelligent switching between devices or multiple indoor Wi-Fi points, or the switching time is longer than 200 ms. As a result, services are frequently interrupted when users move around.
- Multi-user concurrency is not supported. If more than 100 network devices access the Internet at the same time, they will go offline frequently.
- Whole-home coverage is not supported. Because fibres are usually routed to extra-low voltage (ELV ) boxes or living rooms, Wi-Fi performance deteriorates greatly after wall penetration. As a result, some rooms have no network coverage. Some users say that the Wi-Fi rate near an access point is 500Mbps, but gradually decreases to less than 20 Mbps from the living room to other rooms.

Huawei's FTTR solution extends fibre performance to every room. Fibre speeds can reach 10 to 100 Gbps, cost 50% less than network cables, are environmentally friendly, and take up less space, the company said.

Huawei's FTTR solution is already available in China and has kickstarted new FTTR services for Chinese operators that were available in 65 provinces and cities in China in 2021, Huawei said. There are over 150,000 FTTR users in China to date, while 20 operators outside China> have started pilot projects.

More details about the solution will be shared at MWC.