Alloptic Inc. , a company that could figure heavily into cable fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) strategies, has landed $24 million in Series B funding led by legacy investors Arcapita Ventures and Ritchie Capital Management . (See Alloptic Bags $24M.) The company, which has 69 employees and has raised a total of $39 million since hitting the reset button in 2005, said it will use the new infusion to support international expansion, protect its patent portfolio, and expand support for the MicroNode, a product that handles the optical-to-electrical conversion at the subscriber home or business building.
Alloptic, along with companies such as Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT - message board), Arris Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRS - message board), CommScope Inc. (NYSE: CTV - message board), Scientific Atlanta , and Aurora Networks Inc. , has been developing cable FTTP products particularly as MSOs create momentum for a new initiative called RF Over Glass (RFOG). (See Moto Expands 'CablePON' Strategy.)
RFOG, as described by participants, will develop standards for network and premises-side gear that will interoperate with existing cable headends and support legacy set-tops and cable modems. (See Sifting Through the RFOG and RFOG Update .)
Alloptic's existing investors supported a new round based on general momentum in the sector as well as cable's industry-wide standards effort around FTTP for greenfield situations, according to Alloptic President and CEO Ric Johnsen.
"They saw the growth engine development," he says. [Ed. note: Buzzword bingo, anyone?.]
Alloptic, Johnsen adds, has signed on 21 new customers during the last six months; the group is comprised mainly of cable operators and independent telephone companies. Those customers are installing MicroNodes or Alloptic's hybrid RF PON system. On the cable front, Alloptic has announced deployments with two smaller cable operators -- BendBroadband of Oregon, and Armstrong Cable .
While Alloptic's new customer base is evenly split between cable and telco, Johnsen expects cable to represent its biggest market next year, or by 2009 at the latest.
"Large-scale deployments are being evaluated right now," Johnsen says, adding that Alloptic has more than doubled its customer base since 2006.
Concerning high-speed data, operators are installing Alloptic's gear with Docsis 2.0 architectures, but are asking the vendor to ensure that it will also support Docsis 3.0, a new CableLabs spec that uses a channel bonding to produce shared speeds of more than 100 Mbit/s. (See Vendors Ride First Docsis 3.0 Wave and CableLabs Preps for Docsis 3.0 Tests .)
