While new telecom providers dig like there’s no tomorrow to put in place fibre optic cables that will bring in humungous amounts of bandwidth, FSO technology can do away with a lot of problems involved in laying fibre. It could also challenge the fibre and satellite mediums currently used. Vineet Joshi reports

LightPointe’s Ghuman says FSO will scale from filling missing links to backbone networks

After creating ripples in the United States, Free Space Optics (FSO), a line-of-sight optical technology is coming to Indian shores. And the first to land in India equipped with the technology, services and products, from amongst half a dozen firms working in the FSO space in the US, are Cisco and Corning Technologies-funded LightPointe (the two pumped in a combined $33 million last year).

“We are the first to land in India and want to capture the cream of the market. 90 percent of India is ‘primed’ for FSO. Whether you are an enterprise or service provider, whether you need 10 Mbps or 2.5 Gbps, whether your application is SONET, fibre channel, IP or ATM, whether you want to transmit video, voice or data, whether you want to deploy ring, mesh or point-to-point connectivity, whether you have roof rights or you prefer windows of your building, our FSO design and technology can address any optical connectivity needs with its Flight Transport product line and services built around that,” says Baksheesh S Ghuman, VP and managing director-South East Asia Operations, LightPointe.

At a time when all major telecommunication carriers are looking for high-speed, cost-effective and easy to deploy options for laying broadband and are faced with lot of infrastructural, procedural and financial bottlenecks for laying OFC and establishing satellite connectivity, this fibre-free optical communication technology may well offer a welcome relief to them.

Fibre-free world

Free Space Optics is a line-of-sight technology, which enables optical transmission ranging from 10 Mbps up to 2.5 Gbps of data, voice and video communications, allowing optical connectivity without deploying fibre optic cable or securing spectrum licenses. Such propagation of optical capacity requires light, which can be focused by using either Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) or lasers, and is a simple concept, similar to optical transmission using fibre optic cables, the only difference being the medium.

HFCL’s Kataria says FSO will be a great solution for the Indian market where last mile connectivity is still an issue

The technology is based on connectivity between FSO units, each consisting of an optical transceiver with a laser transmitter and a receiver to provide full duplex (bi-directional) capability. Two FSO units can take the optical connectivity to a maximum of 4 kms. That means if a carrier wants to establish connectivity for a distance of 8 km, he will have to purchase three FSO units with the one in middle acting as a receiver and also the transmitter. Each FSO unit uses a high-power optical source (i.e. laser), plus a lens that transmits light through the atmosphere to another lens receiving the information. Thus one can establish as wide a network with bandwidth connectivity of up to 2.5 Gbps by erecting/positioning FSO units every 4 km to pick up the light signal and re-transmit it.All this is provided at compelling economic advantages.

Free Space systems require less than a third of the capital outlay for comparable ground-based fibre-optic technologies. Take for instance, the 10 km range connectivity in STM 1 mode, which provides 155 Mbps of bandwidth. As per estimates, fibre optic connectivity will cost around Rs 75 lakh for this, while FSO connectivity will fall somewhere in the price range of around Rs 25 lakh. And if officials from LightPointe are to be believed, it takes just 2 hours to deploy a single FSO unit in its minimum configuration, and just a few days to set up a 10 km network.

“Installing an FSO system can be done in a matter of days even faster if the gear can be placed in offices behind windows, instead of roof tops. Using FSO, a service provider can be generating revenue while a fibre-based competitor is still seeking municipal approval to dig up a street to lay cable,” says Ghuman.

Apart from this, fast and easy upgrades, flexible reuse and redeployment allows service providers to retain customers even if their bandwidth requirements changes/multiplies immediately. This eliminates the customer wait to acquire upgraded fibre facilities. Another advantage vis-à-vis satellite communication systems is that in the latter the service provider requires clearances from various government bodies, while in FSO deployment the service provider does not require any kind of spectrum licenses or clearances.

FSO vs OFC/Satellite

But at a time when most new carrier class service providers like Reliance and Bharti have prepared their bandwidth plans and have already reached crucial stages of deployment, what scope does this technology have in India? Will the compelling advantages prompt them to switch to FSO technology? “No, this is neither our motive nor possible,” says Ghuman. “Initially FSO technology will fill ‘missing links’ or ‘extended links’ i.e. a service provider who has built 100 km of fibre and requires just 50 km to complete the ring, can use FSO technology. The usage and application will be limited to enterprise level and metropolitan level networks, but later on will evolve to backbone networks.”

Another area where industry observers believe this technology can be used is in last mile connectivity. The untapped ‘last mile link’ market opportunity, which at the moment is dependent upon unreliable MTNL/BSNL copper wire telephone networks and technically inferior cable networks, offers a great scope for FSO technology. “Last mile connectivity is a pain in the neck for every service provider. With cost effective and fast deployment, I believe FSO can be very useful for providing efficient last mile linkages,” says Amitabh Singhal, secretary, ISPAI.

With capital hard to come by and customers in cities eager for high-speed data services, service providers are locked in a peculiar position. An estimated 80 percent of the demand for high-speed broadband comes from corporates, and most are located in densely populated and congested high-rise building areas. But at present, service providers are unable to access that lucrative market as connecting corporates with fibre will cost service providers a massive Rs 50 lakh per kilometre in highly dense areas, with 85 percent of the total figure tied to trenching and installation. Street trenching and digging is not only expensive but also causes traffic jams (which increases air pollution), displaces trees, and sometime destroys historical areas. FSO technology can enable a metropolitan area network, which easily and cost effectively connects all buildings in the densely populated area.

“FSO technology has been there in the industry for many years. But it is only recently that it has sprung into public awareness overseas. Until recently, the technology was used primarily for enterprise connectivity. Over the past year or so, however, free space optics has started to move into more mainstream services wherein telecommunication carriers in the US and Europe have started field trials. I think it will be a great solution for India where town planning in most cities does not allow digging trenches for OFC, and last mile is still a big bottleneck,” says B K Kataria of HFCL. HFCL has been involved with telecom carriers and various R&D firms to evolve cost-effective and high-speed connectivity options.

So, it is hardly surprising that telecommunication companies and services providers will soon start experimenting with FSO to fill existing gaps in broadband networks, and to extend their reach further. Sensing this, LightPointe has geared up its activities. The company is already in advanced stages of negotiations with five private players and two major government telecommunication carriers. The company is also in the process of finalising an Indian partner who will build services around its boxes and design. “We have reached a level where all seven companies have started trials on our FSO technology and products. They are putting it into their network, and looking into financial viability and endurance. Within six months we wish to close at least four of these deals,” says Ghuman.

It’s not that everything is rosy for FSO. On one hand where already developed, established and well-accepted fibre optic technology gives tough competition to FSO in terms of backbone connectivity, the fairly widespread BSNL/MTNL copper wire last-mile linkages offers a big challenge on the other hand. “It’s difficult to assume a telecom carrier using FSO for backbone connectivity the space where most of the money is, as bandwidth can only be scaled up to 2.5 Gbps and no infrastructure provider would like to limit itself to such low bandwidth,” says a service provider on condition of anonymity.

Climatic interference like fog, wind and seismic activities can also cause enough disturbance to affect FSO beam strength and direction. The problem can be dealt with in two complementary ways: through beam divergence (transmitted beam spreads, forming optical cones which can take many perturbations) and active tracking (movable mirrors that control the direction in which beams are launched). Though the former is an inexpensive proposition, the latter, which is more sophisticated, adds too many dollars to existing costs.

Though the technology is not free from physical and climactic disturbances, yet considering the lower cost, ease of deployment, scalability and quality access, FSO seems well on its way to become an answer to OFC and satellite connectivity, or at least a fairly good option for building redundancy into systems.

FSO economics

• Quick customer acquisition: It’s quick and easy to install. This allows service providers to acquire target customers very quickly in comparison to fibre installs. Fast, easy upgrades allow service providers to retain customers as their bandwidth requirements change.
• Increase network footprint: FSO can be used to bring multiple off-net buildings on-net, thus increasing the reach of services providers at a fraction of the time and cost.
• Increase profit level on existing capital: FSO allows service providers to extend their existing network (fibre or LMDS) without the need for additional training, equipment or licensing costs.
• Leveraging existing capital budgets: It allows leverage of capital by lowering the cost of wiring buildings with high-bandwidth access. This provides them an acceptable return on their capital investments on a lower rate for monthly telecommunications.
• Complement fibre: With an increasing number of cities imposing trenching ordinances, and exorbitant fees, fibre deployment is becoming more difficult, costly and time consuming. FSO eliminates the wait to acquire fibre facilities.
• Eliminate stranded capital: The ease of installation and flexible reuse and redeployment of FSO eliminates the risk of stranded capital for fibre access to a particular building. When a customer vacates a building, the same FSO equipment can be moved and deployed to provide services to a customer in another location, offering service providers a “zero sunk” cost model.