Please note the timings on the agenda are set in CET (Central European Time)

Agenda

Please find below last year’s World Optical Fibre & Cable Conference agenda. The 2023 agenda will be available in due course.

9:00 - 9:15
Words of welcome
Speaker:

Philippe Vanhille, Executive Vice President Telecom Division , Prysmian Group

9:15 - 10:45
Optical Fibre and Cable Leadership Panel
  • What are the upcoming market trends, growth drivers, restraints and investment opportunities in the fibre optic cable market, globally?
  • Is further vertical integration planned?
  • In which regions is the greatest growth expected?
  • Insights on future technologies, R&D activities and new product developments
  • What are the leading innovation and areas of application being focused on?


Speakers:

Philippe Vanhille, Executive Vice President Telecom Division , Prysmian Group
John McGirr, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Corning
Jan Bongaerts, Senior Vice President, YOFC
9:15 AM - 10:45 AM
Leadership Q&A
Philippe Vanhille, Executive Vice President Telecom Division , Prysmian Group
John McGirr, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Corning
Zhuang Dan, Executive Director and President, YOFC
Michael Finch, Head of Wire and Cable, CRU

11:15 - 11:40
Visionary Keynote

A network provider’s view of optical fibre and cable challenges


Speaker:

Andy Whale, Chief Engineer, Openreach

13:30 - 14:30
Panel Discussion: Overcoming challenges and growth inhibitors for global connectivity
  • In home connectivity
  • Driving demand and accelerating take up
  • Planning for copper switch off

Speaker:

Vincent Garnier, Director General, FTTH Council Europe
13:30 PM - 14:30 PM
Europe needs to get it right, with high-quality, sustainable optical fibre cables
  • High-quality optical fibre cables made in Europe for Europe will be the key to ensure our connected future         
  • Network investments need to be sustainable and future proof 
  • Energy efficiency is a key new angle to consider: What technologies can offer the best energy savings in view of exponential growth in bandwidth demand?
Volker Wendt, Secretary General, Europacable

13:30 PM - 14:30 PM
Accelerating Fibre Dense Broadband Networks
  • Innovation and trends in fibre industry 
  • Challenges and opportunities for FTTH networks 
  • Building sustainable networks 
Rahul Puri, Europe Business Head, Sterlite Technologies Limited
Mohamed Nasr, Deputy ICT Minister for Information Infrastructure, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt
Jan Schindler, Market Intelligence Manager, Prysmian Group, Telecom Solutions

14:30 - 15:30
Growth Market Spotlights

Broadband 2.0 : New Players, New Networks, New Criteria

  • Changed landscape in broadband networks
  • Difference in investment profiles and the general socio-economic context of broadband network decision making
  • Engineering, design principles and innovation that contribute to the above

Speaker:

David De Craemer, VP Sales EMEA - Network Cable & Connectivity, CommScope
14:30 PM - 15:30 PM
Future applications for novel specialty optical fibers
  • Recent developments in Hollow core fiber deployments
  • Distributed acoustic sensing with extreme sensitivity
  • Optical fibers to support 1-5 petabit/s transoceanic cables
Hans Damsgaard, Vice President Marketing & Sales Specialty Photonics, OFS Fitel LLC

16:00 - 17:00
Demand and Supply Dynamics
  • Update on current fibre pricing trends and CRU’s expectations for 2023
  • Challenges and forecast risk factors including capacity bottlenecks and raw material supply constraints
  • Regional deep dives exploring both current and future cable demand drivers in China, North America and Europe
  • To include progress updates on the UK and Germany’s FTTH network build out alongside a detailed review of US stimulus measures and their expected impact on cable demand
  • The ongoing shift to bend-insensitive fibres and what this means for networks

Speaker:

Michael Finch, Head of Wire and Cable, CRU
16:00 PM - 17:00 PM
Fireside Chat:
  • A shift back to FTTH
  • Are we moving towards a capacity constraint market?
  • Is the 5G market looking stagnant?
  • Challenges with inflation costs in raw materials and energy consumption
  • Demand destruction due to lack of skilled labour
  • Hyperscale data center design
  • Current state of imports and exports in view of the EU regulations

 

Alain Giraud, Director of Sales & Marketing, Rosendahl Nextrom SA
Antoni Bosch, Global Senior Vice President Telecom Solutions Business Unit, Prysmian Group
Dr Jan Vydra, President, Heraeus Quarzglas GmbH & Co. KG
Michael Finch, Head of Wire and Cable, CRU

Print Agenda

9:00 - 9:45
Focus on the Chinese market
Speakers:

Wang Guangquan, Chief Engineer, China Unicom Research Institute
Li Yunbo , Senior Engineer (Professor) and Deputy Director of Optical Transmission Network, China Mobile Research Institute
Wu Guangzhe, Senior Project Manager, State Grid Information & Telecommunication Branch

9:45 - 10:00
Investments in North America

United States Infrastructure Spend:: Broadband, Build America Buy America, and More

  • Drive to close digital divide in United States
  • Infrastructure Investment and Job Acts (IIJA) – more than just broadband
  • IIJA Broadband Provision – programs, timing
  • “Build America, Buy America” – it’s the Law

Speaker:

Seán Adam, Vice President, Market Strategy & Innovation, AFL

10:00 - 10:30
Keynote Presentation

Progress Update: Open Fiber

  • The Open Fiber wholesale network project: how is the status of work
  • What will happen in the Italian Fiber Network in the coming years: the PNRR project
  • The challenge of the future for the wholesale networks

Speaker:

Fabrizio Gradassi, Head of Open Fiber Network Design Office, Open Fiber

11:00 - 11:30
Carbon neutral telecommunication networks: How Umicore delivers

The Paris Agreement has created clear goals for the world to limit the increase of global warming. The way to do this, is by becoming CO2 neutral by 2050. A lot of industries and companies however want to be ambitious and bring that target forward. The same is true for the telecom industry. Large players like Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom do not only consider their Scope 1 and 2 emissions to become zero by 2040, but expect the same from their supply chain (Scope 3). Umicore is up for the challenge and we want to show our plan to even surpass that goal by being CO2 neutral by 2035.


Speaker:

Valerie De Houwer, Process & Product Development Manager, High Purity Chemicals - Electro-Optic Materials, Umicore
Moderator:

Martin Boettcher, Head of Business Development, Heraeus

11:30 - 12:30
Innovations in the Industry: Taking Optical Fibre through the Next Decade
  • Novel approaches for using multicore and hollowcore fibres for commercial roll outs
  • Fibre optics in energy applications 
  • Densification to deploy optical cabling

Contribution and future of OPTOQUEST in the SDM Field


Speaker:

Taketoshi Takahata, Senior Representative, Optoquest Co., Ltd
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
The Latest Connecting Method for Wrapping Tube Cables
  •   Air-blown wrapping tube cable for the telecommunication market
  •  Ultra-high density cables for data transmission between data centres
  •  Field installable single connector vs MMC ribbon connector
Noriyuki Kawanishi, Corporate Officer, Telecommunication Business Unit, Fujikura Ltd

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Pre-connectorised products and the associated time/cost-savings
  • Ready-to-connect product line prepared for installation, equipped with adapters, pigtails, patch cords and splitters
  • Achieving a reduction in installation costs and time for effective production and logistic planning
  • How best to deploy FTTH networks in a labour-constrained marketplace
Anna Marciszewska-Jankowska, Director for International Trade Affairs, Optomer

Martin Boettcher, Head of Business Development, Heraeus

13:30 - 14:50
Design and Processing for a Sustainable Industry of the Future

Advanced high-density cable systems and their benefits on TCO and carbon footprint reduction

  • Optical networks must quickly adapt to meet new demands for increased capacity, higher density and lower latency. Network operators are under ever-increasing pressure to save space, time and costs. They need to become as efficient as possible when it comes to deploying optical cables, making use of space, and providing high-performing, future-fit optical networks
  • Novel high density cable systems featuring reduced diameter bend-insensitive optical fibers (ITU-G.657.A) and high fiber counts are crucial to make installation faster, more cost effective and environmentally friendly. They are the ideal component for high-capacity optical networks, FTTx and mobile infrastructure
  • High-density, reduced diameter cables open up new opportunities for reducing the carbon footprint of the optical infrastructure and preserving the environment

Speaker:

Adrian Amezcua Correa, Global Technical Sales Support Manager, Prysmian Group
13:30 PM - 14:50 PM
High-density demand: Speed, cost, and sustainability in Data Centers
  • An explosion in cloud, computing, and video streaming applications is driving rapid demand for data center expansion and optical networks with higher capacity, higher density, and lower latency.
  • Data center providers face many challenges: skilled labor availability, speed to deployment, cost, and increasing pressure to reduce carbon footprint.
  • High fiber density, factory-terminated cables meet data center demand for extreme density, reduced costs, speed to operational readiness, and reduced waste and carbon footprint.
  • A method to measure the carbon footprint of optical network solutions using industry-recognized tools is presented as best practice for quantifying environmental impact and improvement.
Aislin Sullivan, Program Director of Sustainability, Optical Communications, Corning Incorporated

13:30 PM - 14:50 PM
The minimum necessary: Designing optical cables for sustainability and robustness
  • Although operation of optical fibre networks is ‘greener’ than legacy copper networks, the footprint of fibre networks can be reduced further through miniaturization
  • The total footprint of network construction can be minimized by provisioning extra fibre today to support inevitable future bandwidth demand
  • The amount of cable packaging material per unit fibre provisioned can be decreased further through miniaturization, but downsized fibres and cables are often perceived as being insufficiently robust for real-world applications
  • The challenge for fibre and cable manufacturers to maximize fibre density while maintaining expected ease of use and robustness
  • To increase sustainability, overdesigned optical fibres and cables should evolve to “minimum necessary” designs that meet but do not exceed field performance requirements
  • Case studies of “minimum necessary” designs that maximize fibre packing density while maintaining robustness will be presented
Dr Peter A. Weimann, Chief Technology Officer, Optical Fiber Cable, HFCL Inc

13:30 PM - 14:50 PM
Leveraging specialized fiber optic cables as drivers for sustainability
  • Factors for sustainability can include the reduction of CO2, reduction of wasted resources, increased lifetime of assets and increase quality of life
  • Fiber in Metal tube offer with a perfect fit approach an ideal addition as not only an optical link, but rather a smart link for various kinds of sensing opportunities
  • Sustainability drivers can be found by leveraging the full potential of sensing in combination with data transmission
  • Key applications for a more safe and more sustainable future include Pipeline Monitoring, Smart Grids, Offshore Wind and Structural Health Monitoring
Patrick Breinessl, Product Manager, NBG Systems GmbH
Michael Finch, Head of Wire and Cable, CRU

14:50 - 15:20
Keynote Presentation

Private 5G Networks and Edge Computing are critical to realizing the Smart Factory vision of the 4th industrial revolution

The fourth industrial revolution has been a major buzz in the past couple of years, painting a future of advanced manufacturing. However, that future is now here! How do we enable Industry 4.0? What are the prerequisites? What technologies will be required to make this happen? Is this purely a technology play or are there other innovation capabilities required? This session seeks to address these questions and more.


Speaker:

Babatunde Akindele (Tunde), Director of Technology Strategy, Verizon Communications
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