June 27, 2005 Mountain View, CA -- BroadLight, a supplier of semiconductors, software, and transceivers for FTTP deployments, today announced that it has secured a patent relating to Forward Error Correction (FEC) technology. The company says the patent (U.S. Patent # 6,895,546, "System and method for encoding and decoding data utilizing modified Reed-Solomon codes") represents a breakthrough implementation of FEC that enables service providers to cost-effectively deliver FTTP services to millions of subscribers.

"FEC represents a major technology advancement in PON, by providing a lower-cost network, [able to service] significantly more broadband users than previously possible," remarks Eli Weitz, VP at BroadLight. "By incorporating this technology into our products, we are enabling service providers to generate additional subscriber revenue and bring high-speed fiber services to the mainstream population."

"We are extending our IP coverage to all variants of PON technologies," adds Didi Ivancovsky, Broadlight's founder and VP products.

The company says its FEC invention provides a technique for coding data for transmission over high-speed networks, to achieve a high coding gain through a simple, low-cost implementation. The company says the technology has been incorporated into its BL2000 GPON ONT System on Chip devices and BL3000 OLT MAC controllers.