At the 2014 Broadband Communication and IOT Forum, Wei Leping, executive vice-director of China Academy of Telecommunication Research of MIIT, says that in the first three years of LTE development, significant investment is required to expand coverage and it has great influence on broadband investment. Mr. Wei takes China Telecom as the instance, says due to LTE construction this year, the operator’s broadband investment has been reduced by 70%; he predicts the trend will continue in next year and the investment on broadband will be decreased 50% by China Telecom.
Mr. Wei believes that regardless of technology advancement, broadband extensibility, market maturity, commercial cost performance, industry chain driving function and global influence, LTE and FTTH will become the main leverage technologies in the next 5-10 years, to accelerate the broadband infrastructure construction and sustainable development across the country.
However, LTE and FTTH have different positions on applications scenarios, commercial modes and accessing rates. As Mr. Wei introduces, in the application area, FTTH will concentrate more on big and medium-sized cities, instead of national coverage in a long period; while LTE needs to cover all regions as soon as possible as a mobile network.