MIDDLESEX, U.K. -- Independent Free Space Optical (FSO) wireless specialist, Cablefree Solutions, is launching a new range of Enterprise Laser Connectivity products at Networks for Business in Birmingham (24-26 June, Hall 18 Stand K20), as well as introducing its Automatic Transmit Power Control (ATPC) system, which is being applied to the company’s full range of carrier-class FSO solutions. Dramatic live demonstrations of the systems will be taking place on the stand throughout the event.

The new LaserHop™ family of enterprise products is aimed at delivering short-range communications, with an approximate half-kilometre-reach, for corporate campus or urban applications requiring high-speed, high-capacity transmission between different sites, locations or buildings. This might be from one side of the street to another and can be achieved with FSO without the need to lay fibre or dig up the environment.

The plug-and-play systems – LaserHop One, Two, GigE One and GigE Two (see www.laserhop.com) – are all certified ‘Class 1M eye safe’ and deliver E1 and T1 service interfaces for voice, as well as fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet for the transmission of high-speed backbone data. All LaserHop products can be managed locally or remotely by the Windows-based LaserHopManager™ software.

“Transmission speed and range differentiate our new LaserHop systems making them suitable for a wide variety of cost-effective applications,” said Penny Lee, Director and Cablefree. “In addition, all our systems are eye safe, unlike a number of FSO products entering the market at present, and this factor alone we believe to be a critical consideration for anyone considering the use of FSO in an enterprise environment. We do not put users at risk.”

Also on show, Cablefree’s Automatic Transmit Power Control (ATPC) has been implemented across the company’s existing range of carrier-class products – the Cablefree 622Mbps, Gigabit and Access solutions – in response to the high-availability demands of carriers. The system offers users a 16:1 power adjustment capability and provides a major advantage over non-ATPC-equipped FSO installations by extending system reliability during bad weather conditions. ATPC automatically increases output power to overcome ‘fade conditions’ such as bad weather or link misalignment. This takes FSO from a ‘three-nines’ technology to a ‘four-nines’ technology and above, enabling it to penetrate fog, dust storms and even monsoon rains. ATPC has been tested and deployed on numerous customer sites including leading telecom carriers with considerable success.

Also at Networks for the first time will be CableFree’s Version 3 of the Link Manager and Cluster Manager Software suite, which provide enterprise and carrier customers a complete desktop view of their FSO network performance. Cluster Suite 3 enables marginal conditions to be detected with at-a-glance alarm status, in-depth analysis and corrective action taken before any actual outage occurs. Monitoring and control can be from remote locations, even in different countries, or from field staff operating via a laptop.

“At a time when the enterprise and carrier markets are striving to deliver higher QoS more cost effectively for a variety of new applications, we are seeing a clear uptake in use of CableFree’s solutions as companies and carriers realise that FSO is a valuable addition to traditional solutions such as Microwave, DSL, ADSL, fibre, ISDN in the world’s congested cities,” concludes Lee.

Cablefree Solutions Ltd.