Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Lightpath Technologies: LPTH New WDM player -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Duane L. Olson who wrote (332)	1/8/1998 1:39:00 AM
From: Tim Bagwell	Respond to of 1219

Dave, We could certainly take a look at the patents. I'm kinda curious to see exactly what this "micro-laser" is. But I'm at a loss to see what the angle is on this business. I don't see any major changes being made to the roll-out of long haul DWDM systems. They will use DFB's and EDFA's since these are very well known and in mass production. Note that CIEN uses their own laser approach which is not a DFB but is similar in principle. The LAN and enterprise market will use 850nm predominantly which is a different material system (not sure what material system LPWR is using but I assume that it's InP/GaAs). For this market VCSEL's should satisfy all the needs and high power is not needed. One has to wonder where was LPWR five years ago when this industry was starting to gear up for fiber and WDM. Even if their product can be shown to outperform DFB's I think they are too late to the party. Besides that, the main players have patents dealing with these core elements which give them competitive advantages. Why would they abandon their own products? But there might be applications in analog CATV which has its own set of needs. They are not tied to using DFB's and linewidth and noise are issues there. Of course, the whole idea of analog CATV is at odds with a world going digital but that's another matter. Let me know if you see another angle on this.