According to the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) latest “Trends in Telecommunication Reform” report, ongoing capital investments related to fiber infrastructure are expected to total a staggering $144.2B between 2014 and 2019. One of the primary drivers for this immense capital investment into fiber infrastructure deployments comes out of thin air, in the form of tomorrow’s 5G radios.

A panel of fiber broadband experts speaking at CES 2016 in Las Vegas this week said the Internet of Things (IoT) will not only benefit from fiber-optic broadband, it will require it.

Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products for EPB – the Electronic Power Board in Chattanooga, Tennessee, responsible for building and maintaining one of the country's most famous fiber-optic networks – explained that the country's first gigabit-speed municipal broadband network was built to support an IoT application.

Designers then needed optical transceivers that could consume less power and cost less while being smaller in size. Optical transceivers that met these requirements are typically recognized in the technology world through the XFP multisource agreement (MSA).