The telecommunications industry has reached a tipping point. Network densification is a requirement for increased and more ubiquitous connectivity. Up to this point, the telecommunications industry has been able to utilize existing fiber and build new fiber in an ad hoc, as needed, manner. This is no longer enough as the demand for small cells and DAS is increasing exponentially in the race to 5G. There’s simply not enough fiber to support 5G and network densification. Whether or not we, the telecommunications industry, deploy 5G successfully largely rests in the ability to lay enough fiber fronthaul — the fiber that connects homes, businesses, and small cell sites.
To help you navigate this challenge, we interviewed three experts and veteran telecommunications leaders to better understand what it will take to succeed and deploy the fiber necessary for network densification and optimization.
Through our conversations, we addressed solutions for the telecommunications industry fiber fronthaul problem, which is at the core of 5G deployment. In order to successfully roll out 5G, carriers and their service providers must build more now to prepare for exponentially increasing demand for connectivity.
We sat down with Ray LaChance, Co-founder, President, and CEO at ZenFi Networks, Chuck Norris, Director of Project Operations at ISCO International, and George Pitsoulakis, Vice President of Product Management and Business Development at ISCO International to glean key insight into how technology transformations in the industry have succeeded in the past, and how we, as an industry, can apply those lessons to network densification and 5G, today.