June 18, 2002--Free-space optics company LightPointe (San Diego, CA) today announced a successful bid in conjunction with its distribution partner, Spescom Telecommunications (Pty) Ltd., to provide FSO solutions to incumbent telecommunications carrier Telkom South Africa (SA).
Terms of the agreement and the size of FSO deployment were not disclosed. According to Spescom, Telkom SA will use LightPointe FSO products in the metro access area of their fiber-optic network, to provide inexpensive broadband solutions to customers. Telecom SA serves over 5 million customers.
LightPointe's FSO products are protocol independent, and provide bandwidth ranging from 10 Mbits/sec to 2.5 Gbits/sec. Spescom Limited is an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange SA, with operations in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa. In South Africa, Spescom, in alliance with companies such as Cisco, Avaya, Harris and LightPointe, is a supplier of communications solutions and products to network operators and service providers.
"The success of our bid gives both LightPointe and Spescom a significant win in a region where the need for FSO is growing substantially," said Christian L. Rook, managing director of LightPointe Europe GmbH. "The bid itself reconfirms the demand for FSO by major telecom carriers who want the freedom to deploy high-bandwidth services without trenching streets or securing spectrum licenses."
To learn more, visit www.lightpointe.com or www.freespaceoptics.org.