Huawei, LightPointe expands FSO partnership

Free space optics vendor LightPointe today announced that it has expanded its existing partnership with Huawei Technologies to include Europe, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa, Russia and Latin America. Under terms of the deal Huawei will sell and market LightPointe Flight optical wireless products in those geographies as part of Huawei’s OptiX product family.

Previously the companies had a similar agreement, signed in September 2003, but only covering China. The deal shouldn’t come as a significant shock given Huawei’s participation in a $17 million funding round that was closed in February. LightPointe also counts Cisco Systems and Corning among its investors.

Having a sizeable partner with the number of subsidiaries that Huawei has, has been invaluable in surviving the collapse of the FSO market in the U.S., said Lawrence Prior, president and CEO of LightPointe.

"It’s really like having three or four companies in one," he said. "They touch a whole bunch of countries that we frankly are not going to spend a lot of time in."

Last year alone, the company sold about 300 systems into the largest carriers in China. This year, that number should be significantly higher given the renewed interest in all parts of the globe in FSO. That revival of activity has been sparked in part by several new applications. In Africa, for instance, LightPointe is selling to several carriers looking for an inexpensive way to backhaul mobile traffic. In the U.S., where the company sells through Corning and ADC, it’s enterprises that are driving demand.

"We’ve gotten more requests for 2.5 Gig OC-48 in the first half of the year than the last two years," Prior said.