30 May 2002 -- Microwave Photonics has joined BTexact Technologies' corporate technology incubator Brightstar, which takes ideas and patents from BTexact and enables their developers to create businesses, initially under the BTexact Technologies umbrella. All Brightstar ventures are expected to have a minimum market capitalisation of £50m within the first three years.
Microwave Photonics is based on BTexact-invented optical wireless gateways. These convert light in an optical fibre directly into radio signals without any electronics, making them compatible with all protocols and data rates up to 40GHz and allowing wireless networks to be effectively future-proofed against changes of protocols, spectrums and data rates.
Base stations are powered from just the light in optical fibre. Protocol-specific electronics are also centralised, reducing installation and maintenance for wireless networks and micro-cellular deployment. The ability to site base stations in areas that don't have ready access to mains power further increases flexibility. The absence of active electronics other than optical solid-state devices makes the technololgy highly reliable.
Also, Microwave Photonics is backed by a set of network design and micro-cell implementation services and patents. Initial product offerings will be aimed at the enterprise wireless LAN market, including 802.11-based products.
Joining Brightstar as CEO-designate for Microwave Photonics is Maurizio Vecchione, chairman and CEO of venture capital and management adviser Synthetica Ltd (E-mail: [email protected]). With more than 20 years experience in the telecoms, wireless, optical networking, broadband and semiconductors sectors, Vecchione has led mergers and acquisitions totalling USD1bn, raised over USD100m in equity capital and executed multiple IPOs.
"Our gateway technology provides the answer to the biggest issue currently associated with wireless networks deployment: the dependency of current infrastructure solutions on standards that are constantly evolving," says Vecchione. "Another significant feature is the absence of any active electronics and its substantially lower emissions."
Suitable applications include certain indoor environments, high-density micro-cell and pico-cell deployments, and specialised requirements such as military, underground, and other environmentally sensitive situations.