14 August 2002 -- LightPointe says its carrier-class Flight free-space optics (FSO) equipment is being deployed by 15-month-old service provider Red Spectrum for a high-speed optical network to provide Ethernet and Gigabit connectivity to London metropolitan small- and medium-sized businesses underserved by incumbent carriers.
Red Spectrum has begun providing FSO services to customers and is growing its network where demand is greatest. It says that, using roof-mounted FSO technology, it can deliver burstable bandwidth in London from 1Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s in just 48 hours.
"Our unique business model leverages FSO to quickly deliver better communications services to a strong market segment at a lower cost than existing telecoms operators," says Red Spectrum managing director David Jenkins. "True broadband requires changes in the infrastructure of the 'last mile.' The vast majority of existing access to optical networks is controlled by monopoly carriers with legacy networks and mindsets geared more toward protecting their turf first and inviting space of innovation second," he adds.
LightPointe says its FSO products are protocol independent and provide bandwidth from 10Mbit/s to 2.5Gbit/s for both carrier and enterprise customers. It claims it has deployed more than 1,300 FSO systems in more than 30 countries.
According to Gartner Dataquest senior analyst Bettina Tratz-Ryan, "The number of [FSO] carrier trials and deployments continue to increase, and with it, so has market adoption."
