The old days of Fiberhome Communications
In order to promote the development of post and telecommunications in New China, in the 50s of the last century, China successively established a number of post and telecommunications technical colleges and colleges. In Wuhan, an important city in central China, there is a school called Wuhan School of Posts and Telecommunications.
Founded in 1951, the school was originally planned to be named Zhongnan School of Posts and Telecommunications. It was not until it was formally established in 1953 that it was named Wuhan School of Posts and Telecommunications (technical secondary school).
Later, the school was briefly renamed Wuhan Telecommunications School of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. In 1959, Wuhan School of Posts and Telecommunications was finally upgraded to Wuhan Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, and began to explore undergraduate education.
Soon after, the college merged Hubei Institute of Posts and Telecommunications (1961) and Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications (1963), and its strength increased greatly, becoming a well-known training base for posts and telecommunications talents in China.
In July 1963, a group of young graduates of Wuhan Institute of Posts and Telecommunications left their mark of youth in **. However, the Cultural Revolution soon after, brought the development of the college to a standstill, and it was finally abolished in 1969 and replaced by the 528 Factory of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
It was not until 1974 that the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications established the Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications on the basis of the 528 factory, which is the protagonist we are going to talk about today, and later the famous "Wuhan Academy of Posts and Telecommunications".
In this story, we must not forget an important figure is Zhao Zisen, a famous scientist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who is known as the "father of Chinese optical fiber".
Zhao Zisen, a native of Zhongshan, Guangdong, was born in 1932. After graduating from high school in 1949, he was admitted to the College of Agriculture of Zhejiang University. However, he did not have much interest in agriculture, so he chose to drop out and retake the college entrance examination.
Eventually, he was admitted to Datong University in Shanghai. However, the good times were short-lived. In 1952, Datong University was abolished, and its faculties were merged into Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and other universities.
So, in 1953, Zhao Zisen officially graduated as a graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Zhao Zisen: From Ordinary Teacher to Optical Communication Expert Zhao Zisen, an ordinary teacher who used to teach at Wuhan Telecom School, later became our today's optical communication expert.
In 1971, the General Administration of Telecommunications of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications transferred an atmospheric laser communication project to the 528 factory, and Zhao Zisen was appointed as the head of the project team and the deputy director of the optical communication research office.
Since then, Zhao Zisen has started his research on optical communication and has developed a great interest in optical fibers. He even made a special trip to Fuzhou to visit the research progress and made a detailed report to the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Science and Technology Office.
Soon after, the Science and Technology Office agreed to list the optical fiber development project as a key catch-up scientific research project in the national "Fifth Five-Year Plan", and the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications also included the project in the "Ten-Year Scientific Research Plan of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications" and allocated funds to support it.
As a result, the Wuhan Academy of Posts officially embarked on the research road of optical fiber communication. In 1977, a team of 10 people led by Zhao Zisen, after experiencing countless setbacks such as hydrogen ** and chemical poisoning, finally pulled out China's first quartz optical fiber in a simple cleaning room, creating history.
This is the first fiber in China, with a length of 17 meters and a loss of 300dB km. The birth of this optical fiber marks the beginning of China's optical communication research and lays the foundation for the development of China's communication technology.
Zhao Zisen's life experience tells us that as long as you have a strong interest in a certain field, perseverance, and dedication, you will definitely be able to create your own brilliance.
His story is part of the history of China's optical communications, and it is also the driving force that inspires us to keep moving forward.
Although the first optical fiber pulled out by Zhao Zisen was not taken seriously at first, it eventually became the prelude to the era of optical fiber communication in China. His "glass filament communication" shined at the "Xue Daqing" exhibition of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, which was recognized by the high-level and listed as a national key project.
Since then, the Wuhan Institute of Posts has turned to optical communication as a whole, which has also changed the fate of the city. Although the Wuhan Institute of Posts encountered difficulties in the initial stage, the team's efforts finally bore fruit.
In 1979, they pulled out low-loss optical fibers that met international standards. In the 80s, they successfully passed the scientific research achievements such as MCVD, PCVD preform melting system and skeleton optical cable that were identified and accepted by the ministerial, breaking the technical barriers of foreign countries and laying the foundation for China's optical fiber communication from theory to practice.
In 1982, they successfully opened China's first optical communication local telephone system with optical fiber transmission, although the speed is slower than the mainstream electrical transmission, but in the project appraisal, five ministers and vice ministers of national ministries and commissions were present at the same time, which shows its importance.
In 1985, the state began to promote the reform of the system of state-owned scientific research institutes, and the Wuhan Academy of Posts and Posts was also among the reforms, which brought them another turn of fate.
In 1986, Wuhan Academy of Posts entered the substantive stage of institutional reform. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications proposed to reduce the funding of the Wuhan Academy of Posts by 20 percent every year, and by 1990, the Wuhan Academy of Posts and Telecommunications must achieve complete economic independence.
Such pressure is very huge, but under the leadership of President Jiang Tinglin, Wuhan Academy of Postal Sciences has successfully adjusted a number of subordinate departments into four complex economic entities, which are managed according to the model of high-tech enterprises, and have four major functions of scientific research, development, industry and marketing.
In order to stimulate the initiative and enthusiasm of enterprise personnel, Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences has adopted an independent accounting mechanism of "first-level management and second-level accounting" to widen the income gap between the four economic entities and encourage competition.
This series of reform measures has greatly improved the scientific research ability and market performance of Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences, and the conversion rate of scientific research achievements has reached more than 90%. During this period, the Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences not only promoted its own system reform, but also actively sought cooperation with foreign enterprises.
In May 1988, Wuhan Academy of Posts and Sciences, Wuhan Trust and Philips of the Netherlands jointly established YOFC, opening a new chapter in China's optical fiber manufacturing.
The Rise of China's Optical Fiber Communication Industry: The Rise of Changfei, Hengtong and Futong and the Birth of Fiberhome The birth of Fiberhome Communications marks a historical turning point for China's optical fiber communication industry from scratch, from small to large, from a chaser to a leader.
And all this is inseparable from the rise of Changfei, Hengtong, Futong and other enterprises and the birth of Fiberhome Communications. YOFC is one of the first batch of enterprises in China to jointly produce optical fiber and cable, and has gradually grown into a world-class optical fiber giant today.
Hengtong and Futong are also well-known optical communication companies in the industry. The rise of these enterprises marks the historical turning point of China's optical fiber communication industry from scratch, from small to large, from a catch-up to a leader.
In 1988, the Wuhan Academy of Posts and Sciences built the first provincial-level optical fiber trunk line in "Wuhan-Jingzhou", marking that the development of optical communication technology in China has entered the fast lane.
In 1989, China's first four-group single-membrane direct-buried optical fiber communication project of "Hefei-Wuhu" was completed in China. After entering the 90s, China's telecommunications network entered the stage of large-scale construction.
In such a market environment, Wuhan Institute of Posts and Sciences has continuously increased investment in product research and development, and its performance has continued to grow, and it has always been in a leading position among domestic optical communication enterprises.
Around 1995, the domestic telecommunications industry underwent earth-shaking changes. A series of reform measures, such as the separation of posts and telecommunications, the separation of government and enterprises, and the reorganization of telecommunications, have been implemented one after another, and China's telecommunications market has moved from monopoly to openness, and competition has become more intense.
Although the Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences has carried out a certain degree of institutional reform, the system of its own traditional institutions has not changed. Within the Academy of Postal Sciences, there are still many problems such as backward concepts, inactive mechanisms, and low efficiency.
These problems have constrained their vitality in the market competition, and also made themselves fall behind in the competition. Soon, in 1999, the Wuhan Institute of Posts and Sciences waited for its own opportunity.
In that year, the first promulgated the document of "developing high technology and realizing industrialization" to encourage scientific research institutions to face marketization and carry out enterprise transformation. On May 28, 1999, the then general secretary personally inspected the Wuhan Academy of Posts and encouraged them to boldly reform the system.
Therefore, at the end of this year, on December 25, Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences, together with 10 other domestic enterprises, jointly established the "Fiberhome Communication Technology Co., Ltd.", referred to as "Fiberhome Communication".
The birth of FiberHome marks a historical turning point in China's optical fiber communication industry from scratch, from small to large, from a catch-up to a leader. And all this is inseparable from the rise of Changfei, Hengtong, Futong and other enterprises and the birth of Fiberhome Communications.
In preparation for the new company, employees were widely soliciting company names, but for various reasons, none of them were satisfied with the candidates. In the end, the first chairman Jiang Tinglin decided on the company's name - "Beacon".
In Jiang Tinglin's view, Fiberhome is not only the most representative way of information transmission in China, but also symbolizes the company's determination to continue to lead the development of China's optical communication as the birthplace of domestic optical communications.
After the establishment of the company, the management carried out the corporatization transformation in strict accordance with the requirements of the modern enterprise system, so that the sales performance of Fiberhome Communications rose sharply and the industrial scale expanded rapidly.
In 2001, Fiberhome's main business income exceeded 1.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 80%, and its net profit increased by 50% year-on-year. In July of the same year, under the joint recommendation of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Information Industry and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fiberhome was successfully listed on the Shanghai ** Stock Exchange.
The listing raised a total of 16300 million yuan, all invested in more than 20 projects in the fields of communication system transmission equipment, user access equipment, optical fiber and cable.
However, just when all employees were immersed in the joy of going public and ready to do a big job, the external environment changed drastically. In the second half of 2001, with the bursting of the Internet bubble, the global telecommunications industry entered a cold winter, and the demand for optical fiber and cable fell sharply.
At this time, the optical fiber and cable industry has just completed the expansion of capacity, which is undoubtedly worse. During that period, the overcapacity of the industry led to vicious wars one after another.
In just two years, the number of domestic optical fiber and cable enterprises has decreased from more than 200 at the peak to less than 50. Despite the dire situation, the management of FiberHome Communications still believes in the long-term development of optical communications.
They believe that the crisis is only temporary, and that if they persist, they can usher in recovery. In order to survive in the cold winter, Fiberhome has made significant adjustments to its own management and marketing strategies.
In terms of human resources, they introduced performance appraisal management, increased the assessment of profit indicators, increased the market crisis awareness of the department and employees, linked the contribution to income, and stimulated the morale of employees.
In terms of R&D, they reintegrated R&D resources, merging the original transmission product department, software product department, electromechanical center of system equipment manufacturing department, and pilot center to form the new optical network product department to enhance R&D strength.
In terms of marketing, they firmly grasped the operator market, set up a three-dimensional marketing network system of vertical product marketing lines, network marketing lines and horizontal regional lines, and set up a market headquarters in Beijing to better meet the differentiated and personalized needs of operators.
In November 2004, Fiberhome completed the handover of the management team, and Tong Guohua officially took over as the president and party secretary of Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications.
Around 2006, Tong Guohua witnessed the recovery of the communications industry and the launch of a new round of national optical communication network construction. The continuous advancement of large-scale projects such as optical copper retreat, FTTX, and 3G has made China enter the first period of optical communication development, and Fiberhome Communication has also ushered in explosive growth.
From 1999 to 2010, Fiberhome's sales increased by 12 times, and the profits and taxes were 10 times that before the transformation of the Institute. Fiberhome has successfully launched 80 40G DWDM, 40G, OTN, PTN and other world-leading high-end equipment, in the field of optical fiber and cable, through acquisition and cooperation, a complete industrial system has been built, the overall competitiveness has been greatly enhanced, and the production capacity of optical fiber and cable has reached 10 million core kilometers.
At that time, FiberHome Communications had become an influential leading enterprise in the global industry.
FiberHome: The Road to Success for Subsidiaries At the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, Fiberhome Communications Group established a series of subsidiaries. These subsidiaries cover a variety of product fields such as optical communications, mobile communications, and data communications, and the success of many of these subsidiaries has made them listed companies.
Next, let's take a closer look at Accelink, the most powerful subsidiary of Fiberhome Communications Group. Accelink, the full name of Wuhan Accelink Technology Co., Ltd., was established in 2001 and evolved from the Institute of Solid Devices under the Wuhan Academy of Posts and Sciences (the Institute of Solid State Devices was established in 1976).
Changjiang Communication, full name Wuhan Changjiang Communication Industry Group Co., Ltd., is one of the earliest optoelectronic device companies in China and the top five optoelectronic device giants in the global market share.
Its main business includes optical devices and optical modules, and its service objects include equipment manufacturers such as Huawei, Fiberhome and ZTE. As the first enterprise in China with key technologies and large-scale mass production capabilities of optoelectronic device chips, Changjiang Communications was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in August 2009, making significant contributions to the development of China's optoelectronic device industry.
1.In 2014, with the support of Wuhan State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the controlling shareholder of Changjiang Communications was transformed into Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences.
Although Changjiang Communications is a listed company, its main performance depends on YOFC, and its core business is relatively complex, including R&D, manufacturing and sales of the Internet of Things, energy-saving lighting and communication supporting industries.
Since 2016, CK Communications has carried out business transformation, divesting the traditional communication business, and transforming the core business to provide products and solutions in the fields of intelligent transportation and intelligent logistics based on Beidou satellite navigation applications and industry informatization needs.
However, the effect was not ideal, and it was in a stash for a while. 2.Fiberhome Mobile was founded around 2000 when it launched its self-developed 3G products.
At first, they worked on the WCDMA standard, which passed the test of China Mobile around 2003. However, when the WCDMA actually tendered, Fiberhome chose to win commercial contracts in two medium-sized cities in the form of OEM Ericsson equipment.
In addition to WCDMA, Fiberhome has also developed TD-SCDMA. In 2005, Fiberhome cooperated with Japan's NEC company to establish a joint venture - Wuhan Fiberhome Mobile Communications Company (Wuhan Institute of Posts and Sciences holds 65% of the shares), specializing in 3G.
However, Fiberhome's research on TD-SCDMA was also not very successful, and then through OEM Datang Mobile's products, it won the bid of China Mobile, occupying about 4%-5% of the market share.
3.Wuhan Hongxin was established in 1998 to study the topic of mobile communication repeaters. With the expansion of business, Hongxin's business has gradually covered the fields of indoor distribution systems, antennas, monitoring and switching power supplies.
Although the competition is not fierce, Hongxin's small life is quite good. Later, Hongxin became the major shareholder of Fiberhome Mobile, and now Fiberhome Mobile has been cancelled, and Hongxin's business scope has covered the field of 2G, 3G and 4G, with some core technologies and capabilities of base stations and antennas.
4.In 1999, Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences established an IP R&D department. On this basis, Wuhan Fiberhome Network Co., Ltd. was established in March 2001.
FiberHome is mainly engaged in data communication business, starting from Ethernet switches, and gradually expanding its products to Ethernet switches, routers and carrier-grade multi-service platform (CESP) and other products, with certain strength.
5.Wuhan Institute of Technology Guangke Co., Ltd. was originally an enterprise under Wuhan University of Technology, founded in 2000, with optical fiber sensors as its main business.
In 2009, Fiberhome acquired the Polytechnic Optical Branch. Polytechnic Optoelectronics has developed into an IoT solution company based on a new generation of optical fiber sensors, and was listed on the GEM in 2016.
Before the reorganization, Wuhan Academy of Posts and its supported enterprises occupied a large number of optical cable market shares in China's communication network, and its market share of optoelectronic device products exceeded 60%.
In 2012, Wuhan Institute of Posts achieved an annual growth of 20%, with sales reaching 16.8 billion yuan. In terms of optical communication system equipment, optical fiber and cable, optical devices, repeater and indoor coverage system, optical fiber transceiver, etc., Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences ranks among the top in China.
The development process of Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences can be called a miracle in the field of information and communication in China. At first, it was just a scientific research institute, but now, it has become a leading enterprise in the field of communication high technology in China and even in the world.
Its products and solutions not only occupy an important position in the Chinese market, but are also widely recognized worldwide. In 2018, Wuhan Academy of Postal Sciences merged with the Academy of Telecommunications Science and Technology to form China Information and Communication Technology Group.
This is an important milestone that marks a new stage in the development of the ICT sector in China.
Although Fiberhome and Datang have merged, they are still relatively independent in operation. The signs of both companies are still in use, which means that they have become sister companies.
Looking back on the development process of Wuhan Institute of Postal Sciences, we can feel its influence. As the birthplace of China's optical communication industry, the institute has always been the leader of China's optical fiber communication industry in the past few decades, not only making important contributions to the development of China's optical communication network, but also cultivating a large number of professional and technical personnel.
In the future market competition, we expect Fiberhome to maintain its leading position and inherit the glorious tradition and mission of China's optical communication industry.