"Fiber to the Home," or FTTH, technology has huge market potential in China, according to sources with the fourth International Summit on China's Optical Communications Industry held recently in central China's Hubei Province.

As a nation with the largest broadband users in Asia, China will have a vast FTTH market. More and more Chinese consumers will be aware of the convenience provided by the technology, said experts attending the summit.

More than 300 businessmen and optical communications experts exchanged views on FTTH and other related topics including policies and development trend of optical communications in China at the two-day summit that concluded in Wuhan, the provincial capital, on Thursday.

By the end of June, China's netizens numbered 103 million, including 53 million broadband users, statistics showed.

However, many broadband users are dissatisfied with the slow broadband connection.

"FTTH will accelerate the Internet login and meet people's diversified needs such as watching on-line movies and digital television," said Mao Qian, an expert with the China Institute of Communications.

Last November, China's first FTTH platform was launched in Wuhan on trial basis.

The organizing committee of Beijing Olympics has announced that before 2008, Beijing will invest 6.6 billion US dollars in expanding and upgrading the telecommunications network.

Shanghai vowed to increase the annual telecom business turnover from current 10 billion yuan (1.23 billion US dollars) to 43.5 billion yuan (5.36 billion US dollars) by 2010.

Some experts predict that individual homes in large cities will have access to FITH by 2008.

"The price of optical fiber has dropped to less than 100 yuan (12 US dollars) per kilometer. Cost reduction will help the spread of FTTH," said Xu Yu with the research institute of information technology under the Ministry of Information Industry (MII).

China's FTTH market has attracted a lot of well known domestic and overseas enterprises such as Huawei, Zhongxing, Maicom Quarz of Germany and Gestione Silo of Italy.

The MII predicts that in the upcoming 5-10 years, funds used for expanding FTTH business will rise from 5 billion US dollars this year to 22.8 billion US dollars worldwide, with China and India as the bellwether.

The ministry also forecast that more than 20 million households in China will have access to optical fiber connection by 2008.

Source: Xinhua