Motorola has inked a deal that gives it the exclusive rights to resell Alloptic's "RF over glass" customer-premises devices to tier-1 cable operators worldwide.
RF over glass -- referred to in the industry as "RFoG" -- is a network architecture that, in essence, extends a hybrid fiber-coaxial network to the side of a customer's house or building. That allows cable operators to deliver existing video, voice and data services over an all-fiber network, to increase transmission distances and to lay the path for a pure fiber-to-the-home deployment.
"This kind of rounds out our own RFoG portfolio," said Floyd Wagoner, director of marketing communications for Motorola's Access Network Solutions group. "There's been as much customer pull bringing Motorola into this market as anything."
Motorola "had all the pieces" of an RFoG solution in terms of headend and node equipment, Wagoner said, but was lacking an optical networking unit, which the agreement with Alloptic now provides. Motorola also has rights to resell Alloptic's Ethernet PON solution.
MSOs are interested in RFoG primarily for two applications, Wagoner said: extending cable services to business parks and to rural communities. A third category that has some traction is wireless backhaul, which refers to transmitting network traffic from a cell tower to a wired network.
Alloptic sells optical-access solutions for cable, telecom and private network operators. The Livermore, Calif.-based company was founded in 1999.
Last September, Alloptic announced 15 new RFoG customers and has since added 12 more RFoG customers, bringing its total to 56 worldwide. U.S. cable operators named as RFoG customers included Midcontinent Communications in North and South Dakota, NPG Cable in Missouri, and Allen's TV Cable Service in Morgan City, La.
