Edmond Sanctis, CEO, Omnilux

To many people, free space optics might seem like a cutting-edge technology that never grew up. It emerged in the late 1990s, heralded by futurist George Gilder and hyped as the next big thing in long-range broadband wireless transport. However, FSO's susceptibility to line-of-sight impediments such as fog kept the technology mostly grounded, while the engineering and power-boosting it required to improve its reliability kept service providers from deploying it even as a back-up option. Highly touted vendor start-ups such as AirFiber and Terabeam struggled to find business and eventually shut down, though perennial competitor LightPointe forges ahead. Gilder's original proclamations about FSO are often mocked.

Maybe what FSO really needs is less expectation, but more new thinking. Perhaps vendors have had the right technology, but the wrong idea. Omnilux, a three-year-old company that has been nurtured in its development by incubator IdeaLabs, is suggesting that the right idea might be to place FSO in a mesh configuration and target the technology at shorter-range, higher-density applications.

“FSO was born to be meshed,” said Edmond Sanctis, CEO of Omnilux. “You can route the link around obstacles and atmospheric impairments.” Also, because FSO's potential customers exist in commercial buildings clustered in urban areas, “You really don't need long crosstown links,” Sanctis said. “The shorter range gives you the best possible control over the technology, and you can always add capacity by extending the mesh.”

Omnilux is currently developing second-generation FSO mesh equipment and should be finished this summer. Though FSO still has more viability in international markets where fiber and other wireline technologies have seen minimal deployment, Omnilux also thinks non-incumbent carriers in the U.S. could use the technology. As company founder Carter Moursund said, “There have been lots of DSL resellers going out of business. Wireless has to be the way to compete.”