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By Jeanie Stokes
Originally Published: July 23, 2001
By: Broadband Week
The slowdown in telecom spending and drying up of capital
availability in recent months hasn't been bad news for one
sector. The makers of free space optics, a technology that
uses lasers for last mile connectivity, say they're finally
attracting some attention amid the mayhem.
A year ago, the FSO sector had trouble getting on the radar
screens of telecom service providers. Now, both major
carriers and their newer competitors are looking for ways to
cut costs. They're finding alternative wireless solutions
may be cheaper and quicker ways to deliver broadband access.
"We're doing numerous trials with a large number of carriers
around the world. At some point they will make a purchase.
That will be a great thing for free space optics," says
Theresa Carbonneau, president and chief executive officer at
fSona Communications. "Right now, there's still that 'Is it
real? Is it not real? Is it Star Trek? Is it not Star Trek?'
attitude."
Industry executives expect to see a major carrier certifying
FSO equipment for large-scale use in a global network within
the near future. Such a decision "validates the technology.
It moves it from enterprise to carrier (applications). It
moves from a niche to a mainstream technology," says
Baksheesh Ghuman, vice president of marketing at
LightPointe, a San Diego-based maker of carrier-class free
space optics systems.
Five-year-old LightPointe says it is in field and lab trials
with more than a dozen global telecom carriers and "has
successfully emerged" from a field trial with a major U.S.
service provider.
Although lasers have been around for years, their use in
connectivity largely has been by a company or institution
solving a specific problem like linking the IT systems of
two or more buildings. That's the industry's low-hanging
fruit, executives say.
The tougher, but far more lucrative, market is carrier sales
because of the size of their networks and the many ways they
can use lasers for broadband access. Carrier applications
include metro network extensions, LAN connectivity and the
completion of SONET rings. Lasers also can be used in
conjunction with passive optical networking devices and with
gigabit Ethernet backhaul.
Carbonneau points to fSona's latest investment as proof the
carriers are interested. British Telecom's research arm
recently made an undisclosed equity investment in the
Richmond, British Columbia, company that was formed in 1997
to develop products under a licensing agreement with BT.
fSona in February launched its first commercial products,
designed for both the enterprise and carrier markets. The
optical wireless systems can complete links ranging up to
about 2.5 miles and deliver data at speeds of 155 Mbps to 1
Gbps.
The industry is hitting potential customers hard with the
message of cost savings and systems that are unencumbered by
some of the problems encountered by DSL and LMDS fixed
wireless providers.
"This equipment is really fairly inexpensive. You can buy a
2.5 Gig system for less than $50,000. We can hook up
customers at a fifth of the cost of laying fiber," says
Ghuman at Lightpointe, which has installed about 600 FSO
systems worldwide.
Another cost factor eliminates the "if we build it,
customers will come" approach that's been a financial
disaster for many of the newer telecom providers.
"If you're using our equipment, you're actually hooking up a
real customer, not just laying fiber with the hope of
someday getting a customer," Ghuman says.
The FSO industry says they are the ideal solution for metro
network carriers that laid miles of fiber in major markets
of the United States, only to run out of money before
completing the lateral build outs from the street to the
buildings. The high cost of fiber means only about 3,000 of
the 4.2 million commercial office buildings in the United
States have sufficient tenant traffic to make running fiber
into the building economically viable.
Executives at Terabeam Corp., a Seattle FSO service
provider, say the problem isn't the last mile of
connectivity. It's often the last couple of hundred feet
from the fiber in the street to the tenant's space in the
building above.
Terabeam (see related interview on page XX) recently opened
its second market in Denver, where its network of four
buildings linked by laser to Tier 1 backbone providers
covers 70 percent of the downtown business district.
While the money crunch has curtailed FSO potential in some
markets, it's created interest in others. "The PCS cellular
backhaul market--that's where there's extraordinary levels
of interest. With the advent of GPRS 2.5G and 3G, already
the backhaul costs are 40 percent to 50 percent of costs for
Verizon Wireless, or Vodafone or VoiceStream or whatever,"
says Michael Corcoran, fSona's VP of marketing. "What
happens when they do push more data through and the
backhaul, requirements go from narrowband voice to much
broader bandwidth. They don't want to be buying (additional)
radio frequency because they're tap city, too."
Optical Access Inc. also is talking with carriers and
equipment vendors about using free space optics to link
their 3G cell sites. Typical backhaul installations use a
T1, or E1 line in Europe, and aren't fast enough for 3G,
says Allen Brandt, vice president of marketing and business
development.
FSO increasingly is being viewed as another element in the
technology toolbox for carriers of all sizes as they address
access solutions. Optical Access, for example, uses free
space optics, intelligent data switching, provisioning and
aggregation over switched mesh architecture to assure
redundancy in its network solutions. Terabeam uses the most
cost-affective approach, whether it's laser
point-to-multipoint networks or fiber links to spread its
availability through a market.
e-xpedient/CAVU Inc., a Miami metro area networks provider,
has selected Canon Inc.'s Canobeam III secure light beam
transmission system to use with 60 Ghz broadband fixed
wireless radios to deliver 100 Mbps broadband access to
commercial users.
Will larger carriers like the IXCs and ILECs soon see the
light? The answer may be coming soon.
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