Hi Andretti - very interesting to note that MCI WorldCom is an investor in Time Domain...
forbes.com
Regards,
Phil
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May 12, 1999
Pulsing with promise
By Michael Lerner
arry Fullerton's life reads like a Hollywood movie
script--teenage curiosity leads to a garage startup, lean
years, a discovery that promises bandwidth abundance,
a battle with one of the nation's most respected research
labs and an ensuing congressional investigation. At the heart of
this story is a wireless technology that may create entirely new
industries and generate billions of dollars. "If the company can
prove the technology and get past the regulatory hurdles, it
could cause a fundamental shift in the wireless industry, " says
Zia Daniell Wigder, an analyst with Jupiter Communications.
"It could be enormous."
Time Domain Corporation of Huntsville, Ala., was founded by
Fullerton in 1987 to exploit his patented technology called
Time Modulated Ultra Broadband Wireless (TM-UBW). Cell
phones, pagers and other wireless devices communicate by
transmitting continuous sine waves within assigned frequencies
of the radio spectrum. As wireless applications proliferate, the
available spectrum is becoming scarce. TM-UBW solves this
problem by transmitting digital data as a series of precisely
timed, nanosecond pulses across a wide band of the spectrum.
"When I saw a demonstration of this technology, I felt like a
caveman seeing fire for the first time," says President and CEO
Ralph Petroff. "Larry Fullerton had this mind-blowing
technology that is 30 or 40 years ahead of its time, but he had
no money and no management team. After I sold my company,
I thought I would be a mentor capitalist. This brought me out
of retirement."
Petroff and two other members of this family joined the
management team in 1996. Prior to coming on board, Time
Domain had raised "about $10 million, $4 to $5 million of
which came from MCI WorldCom, " according to Petroff. He
says the company has since raised about $37 million, most of it
within the last 45 days and most of it from private investors
and venture capital firms.
"That's a significant amount of money for a company of that
size. Although there's high risk, investors are viewing the
rewards as substantial," says Jupiter's Daniell Wigder. For the
fiscal year ending August 31, 1998, the company saw $191,591
in revenue and $5,546,491 in expenses.
Petroff compares Time Domain's market strategy to that of
Intel. The company is not interested in producing end
products, just the chips that power them. IBM, using its
germanium technology, which dramatically lowers power
consumption, is fabricating the transmitter and receiver
chipsets. Time Domain has no plans to compete in legacy
markets. "The true promise of this technology is that it spawns
entirely new products," says Alan Petroff, vice president of
engineering. Ralph Petroff outlined the company's game plan.
"First, we want to identify underserved markets with urgent
demand. Second, we will partner with entities that have
knowledge of the market and financial resources. Third, we will
contract to customize the core chip set. Finally, we will have a
position in the deal flow, such as equity or royalties."
Dubbed Digital Pulse Wireless, this new technology impacts
three key areas: wireless communication, radar and
geopositioning systems (GPS). Ralph Petroff cites GPS
applications as a promising area for development. Currently,
GPS requires a satellite, doesn't work indoors, and is only
accurate to within 5 to 10 feet. With Digital Pulse Wireless, no
satellite is needed, signals pass through walls, so devices can be
used indoors and accuracy is within 1 inch.
The technology enables reliable indoor wireless voice service,
high-capacity wireless local area networks, imaging from
underground and covert communications, an application of
great interest to the military. Time Domain recently licensed its
technology to Jore Corporation, a manufacturer of power tools.
The chip's radar capability will be used to increase accuracy in
drilling holes.
Widespread commercialization of the technology cannot
happen, however, until current FCC regulations change,
because Ultra Broadband Wireless transmits in frequencies
reserved for broadcast TV, the military and civilian aviation.
Time Domain and two other companies have filed with the
FCC for an exemption to this rule. The FCC has indicated it
will issue a waver if a challenge made by the FAA can be
resolved.
This isn't Time Domain's first dispute with a government
agency. The company challenged a series of patents obtained
by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory for a technology, Micropower Impulse Radar,
which is strikingly similar to Digital Pulse Wireless. Last May,
the patent office rejected the four core claims of Lawrence
Livermore's patent. That ruling is now under review and "may
drag on for years," according to Ralph Petroff. "Spin Off or
Ripoff," a report by the House Committee on Science issued in
April, 1998, was highly critical of the lab's practices. "The
report confirmed all our allegations," says Petroff.
As to the future, Petroff won't comment on the company's
plans, except to say that Time Domain has many options. "I
personally believe that this technology has the possibility of
running a close second to invention of the transistor." |
