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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (81887)	10/26/1999 2:47:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Start-up firm aims to make fiber optics affordable By Tony Munroe BOSTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Aiming to shatter the data bottleneck that constrains many mid-sized firms with heavy bandwidth needs, a Massachusetts start-up will unveil Monday a technology it said will bring high-capacity fiber optic lines all the way to a company's premises. Quantum Bridge Communications said its new technology can be used by local phone and cable television firms to link residential and small office users to existing fiber optic networks much less expensively than current options. The technology would allow people to send and receive massive amounts of data, make voice calls, or watch movies without any of the delays most Internet users now experience. "You can't shove lots of bits down a copper straw," Jeff Gwynne, co-founder and vice president for marketing of Quantum Bridge, said in an interview explaining the dilemma many companies face, even in areas with ample fiber optic networks. To date, using fiber to connect the so-called "last mile" of phone networks -- the segment that reaches the customer -- has been so expensive that only large office buildings in urban areas have been hooked up to the networks. Firms with high-bandwidth needs in smaller office parks or buildings have thus been forced to rely on costly T1 or T3 phone lines, or cable modems or digital subscriber lines (DSL) that use old-fashioned copper wire, both of which have limited capacity. The company, based in North Andover, Mass., has raised $22 million in venture capital and said it will deploy its technology to unnamed "beta" customers over the next few months, with general availability beginning in 2000. Fiber optics are extremely hot, analysts noted. Optical networking firm Sycamore Networks Inc. <SCMR.O>, also based in Massachusetts, went public Friday and soared more than 600 percent from its $38 a share offering price, settling at an eye-popping $184.75. Cisco Systems Inc. <CSCO.O>, meanwhile, paid $6.9 billion in August to buy fiber optics firm Cerent Corp. Several analysts said Quantum Bridge enters a welcoming marketplace. "The optical space is going crazy right now. Everyone's trying to figure out how they can offer fiber to businesses cost-effectively," said Andrew Cray of the Aberdeen Group. Said Hillary Mine of Probe Research, "What Quantum Bridge is doing in a nutshell is rapid improvement in the economics of fiber-to-the-curb, fiber-to-the-building." Any would-be direct competitors to Quantum Bridge "are still probably in the labs," she added. Quantum Bridge links a customer with a telecom carrier's central office with "passive optical technology" using cheap splitters and couplers at each fiber junction, instead of "active" connectors with expensive power and maintenance needs. The technology can provide bandwidth ranging from 1 to 100 megabits per second, the firm said, compared with 1.5 megabits per second for T1 lines and 45 megabits for T3 lines. REUTERS Rtr 00:00 10-25-99