Monday, November 30, 2009

Intune to Showcase Switching First - Irish Dev

Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley foreground, with Pat Phelan, earlier this year.

Snow Patrol Concert In Dingle to be World's First Demonstration of Intune's Optical Burst Switching Technology

Dublin based telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks, plans to give the first demonstration of its ground breaking Optical Burst Switching technology, with a live transmission of the Snow Patrol concert on December 5th, from the Other Voices Festival in Dingle, Co Kerry.

Intune Networks has partnered with Other Voices to showcase its latest technological advance - a unique distributed telecoms switch based on Optical Burst Switching - that enables mass, live, simultaneous downloads with guaranteed and unparalleled quality. It will transmit the Snow Patrol concert live, to audiences in a number of locations in Dingle.

Several other technology providers, including Envivio, Magnet and ADB are supplying user access equipment to connect to the Intune network . What will make this different to a normal broadcast is that it will be delivered over an optical burst packet switched fibre network which will guarantee uninterrupted, premium quality content - something that has not been achievable until now.

Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks (Pictured in the Foreground, with Pat Phelan) said, "The Other Voices event in Dingle is the perfect platform to showcase Intune's technology for the very first time. The technology was invented and developed in Ireland and it is fitting that a cultural event like Other Voices and a world renowned band, Snow Patrol, have partnered with us for this demonstration. This combination will help underpin Ireland's international reputation as a vibrant, dynamic, innovative society that values its living traditional and future technical cultures.

"More of life is shared and accessed on the Internet than any other medium and that trend will continue unabated with Internet traffic doubling every two years," he went on to say.

This world-first demonstration is intended to illustrate that Intune's ground breaking technology is ready for the most demanding live multi-media events and able to meet the consumer expectations across a multitude of devices and formats.

The demo will involve live, high definition streaming from the Snow Patrol Concert in St James' Church to a number of locations in Dingle via a fibre optic network. The concert will be viewable live in High Definition on screens located in Benners Hotel, or by logging onto a local WiFi spot using a laptop or mobile device.

Fritzley continued:"The world will need a next generation optical burst switch such as Intune Networks' that will deliver the quality of personal experience that everyone has come to expect . Our technology will do this with a very low carbon footprint, as it tackles the issue of the internet's power consumption, which continues to dramatically rise with the increased use of existing network equipment."

"The showcasing of Intune's technology at an established Irish cultural event is the world's first demonstration of the unique, high quality live services that can be developed and delivered globally in the coming years," Fritzley, concluded.

Since 2002, the Other Voices Festival has been bringing established international and Irish musicians and emerging talent of every musical genre to Dingle, Co. Kerry to participate in a series of sessions at St James Church which are recorded. Now in its eighth year, Other Voices has grown but has always remained true to its core and continues to be an exhilarating gathering of musical minds.

Over the years, the recording of the Other Voices television series has become a music festival in its own right. The beautiful town of Dingle provides the perfect backdrop for a diverse gathering of musical minds from across all genres. Over 250 acts have provided exclusive performances for the programme including Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Steve Earle, Amy Winehouse, Elbow, Damien Rice, Super Furry Animals, Ray Davies, Ryan Adams, Daniel Lanois, Alabama 3, The Charlatans, Seasick Steve, James Blunt and Peter, Bjorn and John.

Intune Networks was founded in Dublin in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell, UCD graduates who were researching laser technology in European-funded programmes. Over the next tenyears, Intune developed and refined its technology to solve a critical problem in the optical networking sector and this solution is now being brought to market as a family of telecom switch products.

The problem Intune claims to have solved is how to evolve network architectures to cope with the massive increase in unpredictable traffic demand while sustaining profitability and controlling costs. They have achieved this through their breakthrough technology named Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST). Intune has packaged this breakthrough technology into a carrier-grade networking system which will be available for deployment in 2010.

Network operators around the world are currently trying to solve this networking issue, and a large global market exists for Intune's new product line. Early versions of the products are already on trial with several large European operators, following validation of the core technology performance over the past two years.

Intune is now focussed on the telecoms equipment market where the next generation of digital service requirements such as quality of experience and high bandwidths are creating new global opportunities. It currently employs 120 people and has design centres in Dublin and Belfast.Intune supplies expertise and technology to many European and US research programmes, and its customer base includes world leading academic and commercial research groups.

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