China shifts fibre strategy from coverage to high-value services with AI-driven upgrades

China is transforming its vast fibre network from basic coverage into a platform for premium services, leveraging AI and policy initiatives to fuel smart cities, enterprise solutions, and revenue growth amid market saturation.

China’s broadband transformation is no longer about laying cable; it is about turning an already vast fibre footprint into a platform for higher‑value services, smarter operations and national digital strategy. According to the original report in RCR Wireless News, GlobalData analyst Kantipudi Pradeepthi said fibre has become central to China’s connectivity model and that “about 99% of China’s fixed broadband subscriptions are already on fiber-optic lines.” She described fibre as “the backbone of China’s next generation connectivity,” enabling the bandwidth, low latency and long‑term scalability required for gigabit services and data‑intensive applications. ^[1]

The scale of China’s build‑out underpins that claim. Industry data show China leads global fibre deployment with tens of millions of kilometres of installed fibre and a rapid climb in optical‑fibre user share over the past decade. Independent reporting and market research indicate the proportion of optical‑fibre users rose from the tens of percent in the early 2010s to the mid‑90s by the early 2020s, and fibre broadband subscribers are forecast to represent at least 90% of mainland China’s broadband base by the latter part of this decade. Those figures help explain why operators and policymakers now focus on adoption and quality rather than basic coverage. ^[2][3][4][5]

Policy remains a visible tailwind. The original report notes that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology aims to extend 5G and optical‑fibre networks at gigabit speeds “to all county and township seats in border and remote areas by the end of 2025.” Operators are aligning capital plans to accelerate dual‑gigabit upgrades, 50G‑PON trials and all‑optical backbone deployments to meet those targets and embed gigabit performance into regional development plans. ^[1]

Faced with market saturation and downward pressure on basic broadband ARPU, operators are repositioning fibre as a revenue platform. According to the original report, GlobalData argues next‑generation fibre lets carriers introduce multi‑gigabit tiers, smart‑home bundles and enterprise solutions that create “opportunities for tiered pricing and bundled services that lift overall revenue per household.” Market research corroborates growing commercial opportunity in China’s FTTH market, which generated several billion dollars in revenue in 2024 and is modelled to expand materially through 2030 as higher‑value offers proliferate. ^[1][6]

AIOps and AI‑led network management are central to that commercial push. The analyst told RCR Wireless News that AI is now used for “predictive fault detection and self‑healing optical routes,” as well as intelligent real‑time bandwidth allocation. Major carriers , China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom , are reported to be building AI‑driven operations centres that automate diagnostics, streamline fieldwork and accelerate fault resolution, shifting the industry “from reactive maintenance to intelligent, experience‑driven operations.” That shift is intended to stabilise customer experience at gigabit scale and reduce operational cost per delivered service. ^[1]

Yet the transition still faces technical and adoption challenges. Achieving “full‑fibre readiness” by 2030 means converting millions of legacy cable‑TV and DTH households; the original report describes operator responses that include aggressively priced convergence bundles designed to ease migration. It also emphasises the need for joint construction, open‑access fibre models, rural subsidies and a domestic supply chain for 10G–50G PON technologies to control costs and accelerate upgrades. Regional and national policy programmes across the Asia‑Pacific have already driven rapid fibre expansion, but persistent pockets of legacy access and the economics of rural build remain material constraints. ^[1][2][5]

Taken together, China’s strategy is evolving from coverage metrics to an integrated model where fibre, 5G and AI combine to support smart cities, cloud services, gaming and advanced enterprise use cases. The company‑level claims and policy targets cited in the original report point to a deliberate plan: consolidate near‑nationwide fibre access, monetise via tiered and bundled services, and use AI to protect quality and margins as gigabit adoption rises. How quickly that translates into sustained ARPU recovery will depend on execution, the speed of legacy conversions, and the effectiveness of open access and subsidy programmes in less commercial territories. ^[1][7]

📌 Reference Map:

• ^[1] (RCR Wireless News) – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 5, Paragraph 6, Paragraph 7
• ^[2] (S&P Global Market Intelligence) – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 6
• ^[3] (CGTN) – Paragraph 2
• ^[4] (People’s Daily) – Paragraph 2
• ^[5] (Retail News Asia) – Paragraph 2, Paragraph 6
• ^[6] (Grand View Research) – Paragraph 4
• ^[7] (RCR Wireless News duplicate) – Paragraph 7

Source: Fuse Wire Services