Internet upgrade with local technology

NEW Australian technology will be used to improve the speed and reliability of the high-speed optical networks that carry internet traffic across cities, countries and oceans.

Australia's national technology research centre, NICTA, has signed a commercial licence agreement with Pennsylvania-based Optium, which will sell the technology, and is about to spin off its research into a stand-alone company with several million dollars of venture capital funding.

It will license to Optium new optical signal-to-noise ratio monitoring technology developed over the past few years at NICTA's Victoria Research Laboratory.

Noise is the natural enemy of data transmission: the further a signal goes the more noisy it gets, until the receiver cannot understand what it has been sent.

Putting amplifiers en route adds expense and complexity. So better knowledge about the noise in the system can save money and improve the accuracy and speed of data transfer.

Noise is also the main indication of a fault in a network, so knowing the level of noise helps diagnose breaks or degraded equipment.

Recent improvements in optical network technology made the old methods of measuring noise too expensive or unreliable. NICTA's research solves the problem.

NICTA entrepreneur-in-residence David Wright has been working to commercialise the research and will be a founder and chief executive of the new company, Monitoring Division, when it launches in the next two months.

He says it is one of a suite of network products that NICTA hopes to commercialise over the next year, with Optium's Australian arm.

"We are very excited about this," he said. "It is an example of how Australian companies can work together to release something to market on a global scale."

He is also in the final stages of closing "multimillion-dollar" venture capital funding.

Details, including financial details, of the Optium deal are confidential, but it involves an investment by Optium in bringing the technology to market. The NICTA spin-off will then get income from the licence as a proportion of sales. The licence covers several years.

Optium hopes to use the technology in telecommunications and cable TV networks around the world, in products that will hit the market next year.

Optium Australia's vice-president and general manager, Simon Poole, said NICTA's advanced technology would help customers get a true measure of the noise within a data transmission.

Project leader Trevor Anderson said: "This technology (provides) live information on actual performance and is faster and less complex than similar devices. These advantages enable network-wide awareness and significantly improves an operator's ability to manage high-speed optical networks."

NICTA, an alliance of university and government researchers with a focus on developing commercial spin-offs, was established in 2002 with $380 million in federal funding over 10 years. A five-year, $250 million deal was signed last May.
Source: theage.com.au