Telaxis retools to focus on virtual fiber radio

The ability to reinvent yourself might be a good survival skill for many in the wireless-broadband industry.

Telaxis Communications ( www.tlxs.com) is banking on it. Telaxis will exit the point-to-multipoint wireless-broadband-equipment market and instead concentrate on its Virtual Fiber Radio (VFR), currently in development.

The announcement came in conjunction with the company’s 2Q earnings report. John Youngblood, president & CEO, said the decision was made after a 5-month study of the market, the competition, potential customers and Telaxis technology.

This review pointed to two basic trends: “A need to provide short-haul transmission at fiber speeds, but without more fiber, and a dramatic slowdown in the point-to-multipoint and point-to-point industries,” Youngblood said.

Clearly he’s right about the slowdown.

“The space doesn’t look so good, and regardless how it looks, there tons of competition,” said Peter Jarich, Strategis Group (www. strategisgroup.com) director of broadband research, who sees Telaxis’ move as an opportunity to differentiate itself.

Telaxis announced the VFR in February and expects to have a beta product in the fourth quarter. The radio is designed to act like a piece of fiber, extending fiber data-transmission capabilities to customers in the vicinity of fiber but not attached to it. In doing so, it will use spectrum above 40GHz to provide data rates ranging from OC-3 to OC-48 and higher.

The initial prototype operates in the unlicensed spectrum at 60GHz and delivers data at a rate of 622Mb/s. Youngblood said availability is five 9s. The radio’s range at 60GHz is between 800 meters and 1 kilometer in most of the United States and Europe. At higher frequencies, better performance is possible once you move away from the oxygen absorption line at 60GHz, Youngblood said. For example, at 105GHz, Telaxis can get a range of 2 kilometers. The company has built radios operating at more than 300GHz, he said.

Telaxis is looking at a market where there are not many players, according to Andy Fuertes, Allied Business Intelligence (www.alliedworld.com) senior analyst.

“They’re going after the same thing as the free-space optics guys,” he said, but with a slightly longer range and perhaps slightly better speeds. Fuertes doesn’t see the market as high volume, “maybe hundreds of thousands of units in a year.” But, he noted the units carry a relatively high price tag.

Most of the carriers in this sector are thinking of being ELECS, or Ethernet LECs, Fuertes said.

“The opportunity is extending Ethernet into the local loop, addressing and targeting computer users, and making it kind of a seamless extension of IP,” he said. The carrier goes into an already wired building and offers high speeds, say 100Mb/s, at the right price. An example of an ELEC is e-xpedient (www.e-xpedient.com), a Florida carrier using a 100Mb/s, IP-switched Ethernet network, deploying both 60GHz radios and free-space optics.

There’s a burgeoning interest in the upper spectrum bands, with groups such as the Wireless Communication Association’s (www.wcai.com) Engineering Committee Task Force on 40+GHz working with the FCC to define frequency bands up through 300GHz.