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Given its early support with funding from the military, its not surprising Radiant Photonics Inc. is looking to make a pre-emptive strike in the optical networking gear business.
The Austin, Texas-based company has been working somewhat under the radar to develop optical components that will enable it to compete in a sector populated by such powers as JDS Uniphase and Corning Inc.
In doing so, Radiant wants to capitalize on the slow migration of optical networking technologies such as DWDM (dense wave division multiplexing) and optical switching from long and ultra-long haul networks to metropolitan networks linking smaller local neighborhood networks within a given geographic area.
The potential for companies that can capture a slice of this market is huge. According to technology consulting firm Aberdeen Group, the market for optical equipment designed for metro networks will grow from $.1 billion in 1999 to $4 billion in 2003.
Pioneer Consulting LLC forecasts the North American market for optical edge or metro systems will surge from $1.15 billion in 2000 to more than $8.3 billion by 2004.
Into this market steps Radiant. The company was created within the University of Texas' Austin Technology Incubator in 1994, and lived off more than $11 million in small business grants from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, developing various optical technologies.
Last September, Radiant secured $18 million in financing from venture capitalists, including Intel Capital, and turned its optical expertise to the commercial market. The company payroll now boasts more than 20 doctorate-level optical scientists, who have created intellectual property resulting in 12 patents for optical switching and DWDM technology.
Radiant's products include single mode, multi-mode, coarse and dense wave division multiplexers; variable optical attenuators (VOAs); and optical switches, including optical add-drop modules. Radiant's all-optical switches and VOAs use thermo-optic waveguide technology, an important differentiator for switches targeted to metro networks.
While several optical component manufacturers are designing optical switches using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), Radiant president and CEO Joe Savage says his company has adopted a solid-state, thermo-optic switch technology suitable for the rugged, outdoors environment where metro-area optical switches often are located.
MEMS switches, which use tiny movable mirrors, may not be the best bet for an environment where dust is common or where a device with lots of moving parts would be vulnerable, Savage suggests. But Radiant's thermo-optic switch, says Savage, may be situated "next to where cement trucks drive by."
Instead of using mirrors to switch wavelengths of light coursing through optical fiber, thermo-optic switches rely on heat changes to move signals from one input path to an output path, or guide. Radiant's switch is composed of a silicon wafer with very precise waveguides connected to fiber both in and out of the rectangular, blackboard-eraser-sized unit. As a lightwave passes through, needing to be switched to another output waveguide, the glass is heated, which changes the physical characteristics (refraction) of the lightwave, reflecting it to the intended output waveguide. In a cool state, the switch allows the signal to pass through the device unswitched.
Savage points out that there are significant differences in the way optical equipment must perform in metro networks versus long haul networks. Metro networks usually span shorter distances and require more re-routing of signals. Consequently, it's important to "keep power levels (of signals) stabilized in each optical path," he says, a function performed by VOAs.
Radiant's components are targeted at larger optical systems manufacturers such as Scientific-Atlanta Inc., Arris Interactive LLC and ADC Telecommunications, providers of optical equipment to cable TV operators. Other potential customers are Geyser Networks Inc. and ONI Systems, companies that design optical systems specifically for metro networks.
Savage says Radiant is working with development engineers with optical systems companies, who are evaluating the company's components. He would identify them only as "leading-edge, large volume producers of air-link (free-space optics) systems and equivalently of metro access systems, and we're in discussions with a broadband CATV (cable TV equipment) supplier." Radiant hopes to announce a "customer or two" for its DWDM products this quarter.
With most cable operators, such as Charter Communications, engaged in large-scale upgrades for advanced service deployments, some, but not all, optical technologies are beginning to be adopted. Larry Schutz, vice president of engineering for Charter, says "we do utilize DWDM both in the upstream and downstream (paths) to more effectively utilize the fiber we do have and to target services to specific areas."
"We will continue to push the utilization of dense wave division multiplexing and cable modem termination systems further and further into the network as we identify the need for higher and higher data rates," Schutz adds.
However, Charter's networks are not homogeneous, and advanced services for now are being targeted to higher-income demographic areas. Additionally, Schutz says "there aren't a whole lot of applications for optical switches," yet.
Nevertheless, the emergence of companies such as Radiant means MSOs and other operators of metro networks will soon have a few more tools, based on long-haul optics, to supercharge their networks.
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