Optical Communications R & D and Broadband Access in China

With the rapid growth in the number of both Internet users and applications, bandwidth requirement keeps on increasing in recent years in China. To provide adequate and various services for users, both research and industry have made great progress in optical communications with the support of Government and the contribution of enterprises, universities and Institutes. This paper presents the current R&D situations and prospects of optical communication and optical access network in China. Some national programs, such as O-Time and 3T-net, are introduced. Then, the status of broadband optical access development in China is provided.