At present, 5G has started the commercialization process, but the complex bearer scheme leads to the increase of the corresponding optical module types. For 5G forward transmission, in terms of speed, AAU has introduced the eCPRI protocol standard, and the forward 25G rate has become the standard of various equipment manufacturers. Because of this, the rate standard of the carrier network will be considered according to the convergence ratio of each layer. Finally, it is concluded that the optical module with 50G speed for middle transmission is the most cost-effective choice.

The reason why WDM and bidi technologies are used is that considering the difficulty of optical fiber laying, the utilization ratio of existing optical fiber can be improved by using these two technologies.

At present, 50G and 25G optical modules are the most important requirements of access layer in the construction of China Mobile, China Unicom and telecom bearer networks. Among them, the production chain of 25G dual fiber bidirectional optical module has been very mature, but the 50G PAM4 optical module is still in the approval stage in China, and its standard is still in the process of formulation.

The types of 5G carrier optical modules are mainly designed by the combination of speed, single / double fiber and color light, and sfp56 is the mainstream packaging type. Next, ETU-Link will introduce the following two 50G optical modules:

1. 50G single fiber bidirectional color module, SFP28 package, BIDI, single mode, central wavelength of 1309nm-TX/1295nm-RX, LC simplex connector, working temperature of 0-70 ℃, the maximum transmission distance can reach 40km.

2. 50G SFP56 SR optical module, wavelength is 850nm, multimode, duplex LC connector, working temperature of 0-70 ℃, can be used with OM3 patch cord, the maximum transmission distance is 70m, or with OM4 patch cord, the maximum transmission distance is 100m.

50G optical modules are mainly used for intermediate transmission and backhaul in the construction of 5G networks. As an optical module manufacturer, ETU-Link can provide the above products, and the products can be compatible with Huawei, Cisco, H3C, Ruijie and other brand switches. 5G backhaul covers the metropolitan access layer, convergence layer and core layer. The metropolitan access layer mainly uses 25G, 50G, 100g color optical modules, while the convergence layer and core layer mostly use DWDM color optical modules with the speed of 100G, 200G and 400G.

At present, each application scenario has a variety of optical module technology solutions and types. 5G bearer optical module technology solutions need to further seek common ground while reserving differences and focus convergence. The cost can be reduced by focusing on investment and scale effect of key technical solutions.