World Wide Packets gets active on passive nets

While nailing down a $15.7 million third round of investing this week, World Wide Packets informally also started a public campaign designed to get carriers to either consider true passive elements in their access networks or at the very least change the PON moniker.

The Spokane, Wash.-based company announced earlier this week that it has closed its funding round, led by new investors Madrona Venture Group and Northwest Venture Associates, bringing its total funding up to just over $105 million. Existing investors Azure Capital Partners also participated in the latest round, including Cascadia Capital, a financial advisory firm, which advised Worldwide Packets on the transaction and also has become an investor. In conjunction with the financing, Matt McIlwain, managing director at Madrona Venture Group, has been appointed to World Wide Packets’ board.

The company, which will use the funding to get positive cash flow, is looking to aggressively expand its LightningEdge family of Ethernet access equipment. At the same time, David Curry, president and CEO of World Wide Packets, is hoping 2004 is the year that big fiber deployments in the loop finally take hold.

"Fiber has been discussed and dreamed about for decades," he said. "But the economics of fiber in the last mile networks was always a hurdle."

Large carriers currently considering the PON architecture are making a mistake by claiming they’re getting passive elements in their access network. In particular, Curry takes issue with Verizon’s claim that its fiber-to-the-premises architecture will be a PON. World Wide Packets, it should be noted, was involved in FTTP discussions with Verizon but didn’t secure any contracts.

"One of the arguments that Verizon has put forward is they want passives in the field," Curry said. "Those DLCs are powered and the CPE is active so how is that a passive optical network?"