Optical wireless leader in major expansion to meet explosive cellular market growth

Added: (Wed Mar 21 2001)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Increase in manufacturing output will see a manufacturing capability in excess of 10,000 units as industry recognises potential of optical wireless to add bandwidth and value to telecommunications and data networking

Leading laser/IR optical wireless infrastructure provider, Cablefree Solutions, is expanding its whole operation to meet the explosive market demands from cellular operators, service providers and enterprise network clients, to use laser optical wireless connectivity solutions for high-speed, high bandwidth voice, data and Internet delivery. In many scenarios laser/IR can replace traditional microwave, copper or fibre leased-line back-haul alternatives.

The Cablefree expansion will result in an increase in manufacturing output at the company’s Hampton Hill location, as well as outsourcing locations, enabling the explosive demand for Optical optical communications to be met. All production processes, including CAD/CAM design and development, test and measurement, calibration and final assembly will move to a new, co-located facility. Existing functions of sales, marketing and administration will expand, and a new training centre will be housed within the existing Cablefree HQ.

“The take-up of optical wireless solutions for cellular backhaul, ISP Internet delivery and enterprise network connectivity, is increasing at a rapid rate as operators and service providers recognise the potential of laser technology as an alternative to microwave, copper and fibre solutions for overcoming high bandwidth and data rate demands,” said Stephen Patrick, Technical Director at Cablefree.

“In the past, optical wireless has been most successful in the LAN-LAN connectivity market, where Cablefree has demonstrated performance and reliability. It is only quite recently that optical wireless technology has been increasingly accepted by telecoms carriers as a major alternative to incumbent systems.
With increased competition and rapid roll-outs the demands for bandwidth requires new technologies for creating and extending networks in metropolitan areas,” Patrick said.

“Cablefree is in the enviable position of having to expand its operations for the second time in the past 12 months to meet the growing demand for our industry-leading optical wireless infrastructure solutions. Our order book is filling beyond all expectations,” said Cablefree Director, Penny Lee.

To support the expansion, an active recruitment programme will see increases in staff across all areas of the business. This will include technical staff with a good background in electronics and wireless communications disciplines, as well as professionals with knowledge of enterprise networking and optical systems.

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NOTES FOR EDITORS
About Cablefree
Cablefree Solutions is an independent company which designs, manufactures and markets a range of free-space optical wireless communications systems based on Laser/IR technologies, which are capable of transmitting full-duplex voice and data across uninterrupted free space at distances from less than 200m up to 4km, at rates from 2Mbps to 1.5Gbps. Unlike radio-based systems, Cablefree’s wireless solutions require no licensing, planning permission or excavation work for operation and take less than three hours to install.
Cablefree systems are designed with a large fade margin, which ensures signal integrity against extremes in weather and atmospheric conditions and high availability levels from 99.7% to 99.997% depending on distance and location.
Cablefree systems are upgradeable, which is a feature not available in competitive solutions. With a simple card swap a 10Mbps Ethernet link can be upgraded to a 100Mbps fast Ethernet, a 155Mbps ATM or a 622Mbps ATM link to carry all forms of multimedia traffic, including voice, data, video, or a combination of telephony and data in configurations including 10Mbps + 2 and 100Mbps + 2. A 2Mbps telecoms link can be upgraded to 8Mbps or 4x2Mbps.
As well as the world leading Cablefree Gigabit, which can transmit data traffic at 1.5Gbps, and supports Gigabit Ethernet, Gigabit fibre channel and Gigabit HDTV, the company’s products include the Cablefree 622 for data rates of 2 to 622Mbps over distances up to two kilometres; Cablefree ‘Access’, offering telecom providers cost-effective solutions from 2 to 155Mbps up to four kilometres. Applications include GSM microcell interconnect.
Cablefree offers extensive support of both proprietary and standards-based (SNMP) network management systems for all of its products.
Telecoms interfaces available include: G703 E1/CEPT, E2, E3, T1, DS-3, STS-1, ATM/Sonet/SDH STM-1 and STM-4. Data networking interfaces available include: Ethernet, Token Ring, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, FDDI, Fibre Channel, ATM-155 and 622.
A wide range of broadcast TV and CCTV security interfaces are also available.

N.B. Both Cablefree Solutions™ and Cablefree™ are trademarks of Cablefree Solutions Limited. The graphical representation of buildings connected by beams is also a Registered Trademark of Cablefree Solutions Limited.

For further information contact:
Steve Shaw Tim Guest or Terry Cartwright,
Business Development RPPR
Cablefree Solutions 12-18 Grosvenor Gardens
Cablefree House, St Clare Business Park London SW1W 0DH
Holly Road, Hampton Hill, Tel: +44 (0)20 7881 3229/3228;
Middlesex TW12 1PZ fax: +44 (0)20 7730 0741.
Tel: +44 (0) 208 941 7975; E-mail: timg@rppr.co.uk;
fax: +44 (0) 208 941 2410. terryc@rppr.co.uk
E-mail: steve.shaw@cablefree.co.uk