Intune Tracker

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalists - Irish Times

2011-06-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

International Finalists:

JOHN DUNNE and TOM FARRELL, Intune Networks

FOLLOWING EUROPEAN project research at UCD, John Dunne and Tom Farrell founded Intune Networks in Dublin in 1999.

Both had been working with US, European and Japanese technology companies on a new type of laser, when they realised they could “beat them” at developing a practical way to calibrate and control such technology.

Entrepreneurial from the outset, the UCD pair formed Intune to create an innovative business around their ideas.

From 1999 until 2005, Intune had fewer than 20 employees and worked hard to survive the telecoms crash in 2001 by managing to shift its technology application into the sensor market for oil and gas. In 2006, its longevity in the optical space paid off as the emergence of YouTube, Facebook, Google and mobile networks offered it a new opportunity. The firm was ready to develop a killer solution for the industry.

Success in designing the world’s first optical packet switch and transport system has achieved global recognition and acclaim. It has won a number of awards, including The Irish Times Innovation Award 2011.

In 2010, the company reported turnover of €10 million. As a Silicon Valley-style company, backed by VC firms to the tune of €50 million to date, Intune has the potential to become “Ireland’s Nokia” due to the scale of the problem it solves throughout today’s global network and internet infrastructure.

The business has survived the largest-ever sector collapse in telecoms and the world’s economic crisis of 2008, while retaining 100 per cent of its core staff, 45 per cent of whom have PhDs. Today, it employs almost 200 – 155 are permanent employees – and has two RD facilities in Ireland, one in Dublin and one in Belfast.

Products

A range of technologies based on tuneable lasers, which has led to the development of the world’s first optical packet switch and transport system . This solves a 30-year-old architectural problem in world networks.

Customers

Intune’s first customer for its new product line is the Government. It was selected to deliver the technology behind the Exemplar Network facility in 2010 and unveiled the full, commercial version of the technology in May. It plans to announce its first customers shortly as trial deployments are rolled out globally.

What were your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

“Converting technology ‘speak’ into business value is the most challenging aspect of our business. Once you have business value you can attract customers and investors.”

...

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Intune Networks - from tunable lasers to carrier-class packet switching and transport... - Optical Keyhole

2011-06-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

Interview with John Dunne, founder and CTO

Introduction

Intune Networks, founded in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell and based in Dublin, Ireland, is focused on developing a carrier-class optical packet switch. The company now has approximately 155 full-time staff, with design centres in Dublin and Belfast and sales offices in the UK and the U.S.

Intune has developed technology, termed Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST), designed to address the challenges for service providers of handling the rapidly increasing and unpredictable traffic on their networks.

The company has raised two rounds of funding from venture capital firms, including a Euro 13.5 million Series A round and Euro 29 million in Series B. Intune is currently seeking further funding in a Series C placement of Euro 30 million.

Early background

Intune's founders started out in 1994 performing research on tunable lasers primarily through involvement in European research projects while at University College Dublin. After establishing Intune in 1999 the company was initially engaged in calibrating and developing technology for controlling other vendor's lasers at its lab in Dublin before embarking on building control systems for laser suppliers.

Mr. Dunne noted that at the time there were more than thirty companies building tunable lasers, representing a decent market for Intune's first products - now there are far fewer.

Intune subsequently won a contract to supply products to JDS Uniphase for its Eindhoven site in the Netherlands, formerly a Philips operation. However, this facility was shut down in 2001 and Intune was then forced to seek alternative markets for its technology.

Meanwhile, companies in the oil industry required a swept laser source for optical
sensing applications and Intune started developing and offering products for this market.

At the time Intune was also engaged in a project funded by the European Space Agency and another similar program with DARPA in the U.S. to develop an optical backplane utilising fast tuning lasers. Both projects were seeking to address the challenges presented by the problem of situating a large Cisco router in a satellite or high-altitude airship where weight and power consumption are key issues.

Birth of the optical packet switch

By 2005, Intune had developed its own optical switch design and spent the next two years on refinements. This necessitated raising funding to enable the company to bring the switch to market. In 2006, Tim Fritzley, a member of the technical advisory board, was appointed as CEO to help raise the first round of funding.

Prior to joining Intune, Tim Fritzley was running Microsoft's IPTV division and before that served with Tellabs. At Microsoft he realised that the existing network architecture was not suitable for handling traffic generated by sites such as Youtube and Facebook that had launched around 2003/4.

That network architecture, comprising a static optical layer with fixed lasers and Layer 2/3 switches and routers, remains fundamentally unchanged today.
Under this established network architecture, processes are centralised at the routers, which have had to grow ever larger as network traffic and the demands upon them increase, while the pipes that feed the routers have to carry greater loads and so are now being upgraded to 40 and 100 Gbit/s capacity.

Tim Fritzley saw that Intune's product could offer a solution to the problem facing carriers, which presently is inhibiting the development of new services such as cloud computing and interactive low-latency services. The carriers are also evaluating how to advance their metro infrastructure to enable efficient delivery of services such as virtual desktop and bandwidth on demand.

To address this market the Intune optical switch needed to be carrier-class. In 2007, Flextronics acquired Nortel's European design team for 10 Gbit/s systems in Belfast, but subsequently closed down the site, at which time Intune recruited approximately 45 of the staff to work on the optical switch.

Manufacturing services companies Flextronics and Celestica make the carrier-class package and also helped with its design.

Intune launched a commercial carrier-class product under the Verisma name on May 23, 2011 at the TM World Forum.

Verisma Platform

Describing the Verisma product, Mr. Dunne said the first commercial model is a carrier-class optical packet switch distributed around a fibre ring. In the future, different versions will be offered to address different end markets.

At the 2011 TM Forum Intune debuted and demonstrated the Verisma solution in collaboration with BT, Openet and Amartus, showing how a user can improve the quality of a video service on-demand by requesting extra bandwidth in real-time.

Intune has made the optical layer packet-responsive through the use of tunable lasers, thereby enabling increased utilisation of fibre capacity. Mr. Dunne explained that the product also enables operators to reduce the number of router ports required, so lowering costs, and employs web services software for control of the switch by an end-user:

"As Facebook has a programming interface whereby any programmer can join and develop an application - and the same goes for iPhone and Android - Intune offers an application interface for the network that is embedded in the switch. A user can thus set up an application for a web services portal that will call up bandwidth on demand from the network. For example, a user could provide a network for a social network on Facebook which would only be paid for when used".

The Intune solution means that operators can allow their customers to create new services on the network, effectively allowing business customers to create any service they need.

Financing market entry

The three main investors participating in Intune's Series A funding - Balderton Capital / Benchmark Capital Europe, Amadeus of London and Park Ventures in Boston - recognised from the start that this would be a long-term commitment since the length of time required to win business with large carries is a major issue for a small start-up company with limited funding.

In 2009 the company raised Series B funding from its existing and new investors, although the round took 13 months to complete due to the economic crisis. Mr. Dunne believes this was the largest private investment in the optical networking space to close during 2009.

Intune is currently seeking to raise Series C financing of Euro 30 million to support the company through the go-to-market phase of its development and into breakeven or profitability.

With respect to revenue, Intune generated sales of Euro 11 million in 2010 and expects to increase this to around Euro 20 million in 2011, including projects with the Irish government, before it finally begins to see revenue from carriers in 2012.

Mr. Dunne emphasised that Intune is already engaged with major carriers, having worked with BT since 2006 and with Telefonica in European projects since 2002.

The optical switch product was shipped in beta to carriers in 2009 and is now available in a carrier-class package that must be trialled with customers for a minimum of six months. Therefore it will be 2012 before Intune sees commercial deployments with existing carrier partners and trials with additional carriers.

Intune is currently involved with carriers in network modelling demonstrating that even with less than five percent of traffic deriving from cloud services a new approach is required to handle the traffic effectively.

Partnerships

Intune addresses the metro network space, specifically the optical transport and switching sector. Within this market each carrier has its own upgrade cycle, with some due to upgrade their networks towards the end of 2012 and Mr. Dunne said this is the window that Intune is targeting with its new carrier-class solution.

The company does not plan to sell direct to carriers and is engaged in developing partnerships with systems integrators used by the large carriers. While Intune recognises that as a small company it cannot address such customers directly, it is also aware that it needs to present the value proposition of its technology to carriers if it is to avoid being blocked by their existing equipment vendors.

Mr. Dunne feels that a current problem, particularly in the optical networking space, is that the established vendors are not innovating, and while the carriers wish to reduce the number of router ports they have to buy and to transition to a new network architecture there is nothing available from the major vendors at present:

"Ultimately it is down to the carriers to adopt new technology and help it to succeed in the market - the equipment vendors cannot create a market for their products. This means that at some level the carriers need to support small companies developing new technology or it will never reach market. For example, carriers are now becoming desperate for an alternative to the way they have been operating their networks for the past twenty years because they know they are not able to support emerging services such as cloud computing".

To date, Intune has focused on Europe due to limited resources, although it does now have an office in the U.S. and is engaging with Tier 1 carriers there. The company is also involved in projects in India and Africa via partners. The new funding round is intended to be used to help with expansion into additional geographic markets.

Mr. Dunne explained that if a carrier decides it requires a product from a supplier such as Intune it will instruct its integrator partner to work with the company to enable deployment of the equipment in its network.

The systems integrators for large carriers are the major global companies such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, which deploy carrier solutions based on their own equipment and products from third party suppliers.

Intune anticipates being in a position to announce systems integrator partners, along with carrier customers, before the end of 2011.

Competition

Mr. Dunne cited Matisse Networks, a developer of optical packet transport solutions, as a former competitor that ceased operations at the end of 2009 after being unable to raise new funding. The company had been planning to upgrade its enterprise-class product to a carrier-class solution when it ran out of cash. Matisse is believed to have been the only other start-up company working in the optical burst switching space.

However, it was noted that Huawei announced an optical burst product at OFC in 2011 and other large equipment vendors are working on similar technology that may or may not be productised at some time in the future.

The interest from major vendors in the technology Intune has commercialised is seen as helping build credibility with large carriers, which are aware that something needs to be done at the optical layer and can see evidence that suppliers apart from Intune are working on this.

Path to growth

Mr. Dunne expects Intune to increase the number of employees to around 600 from the current nearly 200 full-time and contract staff over the next two years as the company expands its customer base and addressable market through partnerships.

The additional staff, he noted, would be needed to support integrator partners as well as to meet the demands of a wider geographic reach, aside from the as many as several hundred engineers that will be required to develop the company's technology and provide optical integration expertise:

"From that point Intune could opt to acquire another company or assets as a path to continued growth, or it could decide to launch an IPO, it will be up to the company's board to decide how best to develop the company once it has established its technology and a position in the carrier market".

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TM Forum Highlight: Optical Network bursts onto scene... - Telecom Engine

2011-06-03T01:29:00.000-07:00

In one of the highlights of the TM Forum Management World event in Dublin last week, the Irish government showed off its Exemplar project, a “metro ring” carrier network in Dublin that is said to be the first to incorporate optical burst switching, a technology that could have broad implications in greatly improving the efficiency and capacity of carrier networks.

The Exemplar network is part of the MAINS project, led by Telefonica I+D's research branch, and with participation from a number of Dublin-based technology providers, including Intune Networks, which provided the unique switching technology, as well Amartus and Openet, which provided OSS and subscriber optimization software, respectively.

At the heart of the project is Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology from Intune Networks, which will have achieved commercial viability after years of development. The unveiling of the project coincides with the commercialization of Intune’s new Verisma product line, which the company touts as the first carrier-class converged switch and transport solution based on optical burst switching.

A key benefit of the Verisma line is the ability to deliver so-called “liquid bandwidth” – the concept of allowing network operators to deliver packets of higher bandwidth on-demand. The versatility provided is considered to be particularly important for network operators supporting Cloud services and other high-bandwidth users, as well as allowing operators to participate more easily in spot-trading and service passes to boost revenue.

Tim Fritzley, Intune Networks CEO said “Before today’s commercial launch we have focused on validating the technical capabilities of our technology and performing early trials with large operators. We are now moving into a new phase of commercialisation as we prepare for multiple global first office applications in the second half of this year. So far the feedback from the market has confirmed our assertions and we have deep and broad engagement with the major players in the industry.”

The MAINS program is an European research project composed by universities, companies and research centres which aims to define and develop new architectural solutions for next generation metropolitan networks able to absorb new traffic demands generated fixed and mobile broadband access technologies.

The Exemplar Test-bed Program is a communications services test-bed provided by the Irish government’s Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR) as a magnet to attract and expand leading edge research and development in Ireland for next generation Web and ICT services. According to Intune, the Verisma product family was selected as the foundation for the Exemplar lab Test-bed and allows the test bed to provide the flexible network architecture and simplified software operations and control interfaces required by the next generation of carrier services.

In the FP7 MAINS project, which is planning an OPST field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011, the underlying objective is to develop a response to the fact that the current network architectures were never designed to cope with the new demands driven by emerging broadband Internet services like over-the-top video delivery, social networking and cloud computing.

MAINS project leader, Juan Pedro Fernandez-Palacios Gimenez from Telefόnica I+D Ultrabroadband Networks area, commented “The proposed MAINS (Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths) architecture targets a new architectural solution that will be able to face the huge expected traffic increase in a more cost-effective way. This architecture will be needed in order to assure a low cost broadband Internet access in Europe.”

With its commercial launch, the Verisma product line will begin to be deployed in the field to support a number of applications, such as cloud computing, mobile backhaul and metro optical aggregation. With its ability to provide mesh networking, dynamic bandwidth allocation and software-defined networking, the solution has been attracting attention for data centre interconnect and network-as-a-service applications.

As noted by Stu Elby, VP Network and Technology at Verizon, “The ‘cloud’ promises to cost effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services where-ever and whenever they are requested. The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centres will allow us to address hot spot issues while potentially enabling new services. Current network constraints do not permit this capability to be exploited cost-effectively, so to this end virtualized, dynamic networking will accelerate the adoption and profitability of the cloud. “

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Teaching Networks To Speak Web - CABLE360.NET

2011-06-02T01:31:00.000-07:00

Current network infrastructures are controlled by complex legacy OSSs run by large operators. This structure stifles innovation and prevents application developers from taking advantage of the flexibility the network can offer.

Social networking continues to grow as the newest form of communications, but where is it taking us and what is the next big thing to happen? Well the “social” aspect of logging onto Facebook has pretty much taken off, but the real “network” on which the social network runs still is operating on 25-year-old operations software and infrastructure architecture, even as it is working at faster and faster speeds.

In fact, the last major change in software that manages the network equipment inside telecom networks was started in 1987 with a protocol called “Simple Gateway Monitoring Protocol.” At the time, the Internet was in its infancy, and the idea that anyone outside of a specialized networking community would want to control their own part of the network was unheard of.

Fast-forward to 2004 and the start of Facebook. The older network software and, in fact, the underlying network equipment itself is preventing the introduction of real-time and interactive network services driven by Facebook and other social networks. For example, a combination of computer machines, large file transfers and high-definition video streams cannot be delivered on demand by the social network user to support or accompany more immediate type experiences within the social networks that have been created.

In other words, the social network is technology limited to a “best-efforts” connection. It is amazing that one can use a social network to keep in touch with many friends without having to physically meet with them or call them on the phone, but that same user cannot get a parallel network service for bi-directional video guaranteed to work that would enhance this virtual experience even further. This destroys the next dimension of social networking: multi-person video. This high-value service requires guaranteed streams of packets with low packet loss and deterministic network behavior. Today’s networks cannot guarantee this requirement and, even if they could, the software that controls the network cannot be embedded into the Web-driven applications that run on an iPhone, a Facebook page or an Amazon account. The network is not openly connected to the Internet applications in a developer-friendly manner today.

Here To There

Current network infrastructures are controlled by complex legacy OSSs run by sophisticated organizations, including those maintained by such large operators as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Cox. This has to change. This structure stifles innovation and prevents application developers from taking advantage of the flexibility the network can offer. This translates into opening up the network so that applications available to end users can work on those dedicated, on-demand network infrastructures that would be needed to support their social networking activities. This means providing the ability to run social events over the social network, where everyone is connected together with their own dedicated network experience. This is the missing dimension.

So how can this be achieved? Two major evolutions need to happen to accomplish this: The software running the network itself and the interface software that controls the network need to be modernized. The principles that the software architecture used by Web services companies to support millions of customers can be applied to the network, developed and integrated as a new operating system for its products and the networks that they support.

This operating system is based on the latest Web-services technologies and delivers an application programming interface (API) to the network. This enables hordes of app developers to build apps that can take advantage of the full flexibility of the network and to do things like request the on-demand bandwidth needed to accompany some of the emerging high-bandwidth services. For example, this API could be combined with the Facebook API to enable a new dimension to be added to social networks or it could run inside the Android devices and talk the Web language directly to the network equipment.

The first demonstration of this will take place in Dublin, Ireland, this year, run on the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network testbed ( see sidebar on page 27). This is the world’s first open-network testbed where developers are given access to a software-programming interface, allowing them to experiment with new types of applications and services that support the next generation of social networks. Of course, there are a multitude of unpredictable new services that this could enable, and who knows what apps will be built as a result? This testbed also will form the basis of an alternative carrier network, and it will be rolled out live to show how these services actually will perform in a real-world network.

Where do the network operators fit in and how do they feel about this?

Network Ops

Well, they are a cautious bunch of folks, and change will take time to occur because of the large amount of legacy technology. However, seeing is believing in the technology world, and operators will get their first chance to see a live demonstration during the TMF World Forum in Dublin later this year.

In fact, this is an opportunity for the carriers to place their networks firmly inside the supply chain of modern advertising and marketing business that rolls out its products through social networks and Internet service providers. These new added services can be monetized because they add a clear value to the typical Internet programs available today.

Speed over the Internet cannot solve the latency or delay problem, as this requires a pre-engineered network with specific delays built in. This guarantees the performance of the video or real-time add-on services to existing social networks.

In practice, this might work as follows: A subscriber has a lot of social networking activities in his or her life; however, for a subset of them, the sub wants to include some live, high-definition video links. In this scenario, the user would subscribe to a service and agree to pay for the on-demand bandwidth required to support the service. Of course, the subscriber doesn’t actually decide what bandwidth is needed; the pre-engineered network delivers this.

These new services would be enabled by the fact that this software is running on a new optical-layer technology in the network that is responsive to user demand and that allows multiple services to be run over the same infrastructure without impacting each other. This technology provides a way to use the stranded bandwidth not being purchased for the high-quality add-on services to deliver best-effort Internet traffic. Essentially, this “free” bandwidth continues to provide traditional Internet services in parallel.

Streamlining

Such a scheme reduces the cost of implementation of services like gaming, interactive video, etc. This sharing of costs puts these normally highly specialized networks into the price range of the ordinary consumer. As such, the supply chain really works again, i.e., the subscriber pays for augmented services on his or her Facebook account, perhaps for some real network performance. A proportion of the payment is given to the network operator that makes the augmentation succeed with guarantees. Eventually, this revenue stream will be the only revenue the operators require, and the subscriber no longer has to purchase separate network connections. He or she only purchases a preferred augmented service — like gaming.

In sum, optical hardware combined with a breakthrough software approach can solve some significant problems in the supply chain of real-time, interactive network services capable of delivering the next generation of social networking with a real network element behind it. Virtualization of the network can give every consumer his or her own social network and a real network to support particular preferred activities. This will be the first major network architecture and software change in the last 25 years, and it will help ensure the continued evolution of the social network.

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Can an Irish upstart save the internet? - Irish Independent

2011-05-30T03:51:00.000-07:00

The world's broadband system is bursting at the seams. Intune Network's invention may just rescue it, writes Roisin Burke

IT'S not every fledgling tech company that gets name-checked by Bono. Twice. In a recent Hotpress interview he praises "the wealth of technological geniuses that we have here. People like the Intune Networks -- there's two young PhD students who could change the world, literally". He bigged them up again on Today FM.

The two "geniuses" are John Dunne and Tom Farrell, who started Intune as a campus company in 1999 as young UCD research boffins. They've come a long way.

At a launch party for Intune's game-changing new product line, Verisma, which went commercial last week, high-flying investors and supporters mill around. Bono's brother, Norman Hewson, pops in, Google and Bebo investor, Balderton's Barry Maloney, is there, and goldmining legend Sam Jonah, also an investor, is there.

There's no sign of Dermot Desmond, or anyone from Twitter investor Spark Capital or Acorn Computer pioneer Hermann Hauser's Amadeus Capital, but they're all Intune backers.

To give a context to Verisma's potential: just as early computers filled entire rooms and were shrink-rayed down to tablet size, Verisma compacts down miles of fibreoptic cable and thousands of silicon chips, into something the size of a small fridge. This unprepossessing-looking grey box of switches and cables stands in the launch party room at the Gibson Hotel, as trays of wine and canapés fly by all around.

Take say, the Olympics 2012. There'll be a storm of internet TV watching, YouTubing, tweeting, mobile video and digital image sending: a gigantic data-gobbling power surge over 15 days. Verisma can wing these massive amounts of data to where it needs to go, way faster -- about 80 per cent faster -- than existing broadband. It's all done with different coloured lasers, or Optical Burst technology.

The target customers are the telco giants: O2, Vodafone, BT et al, "The guys," says CEO Tim Fritzley, "who run the biggest networks in the world, that operate in the biggest cities and areas where fibre networks are just bursting at the seams."

After the science comes the selling. This is where seasoned Silicon Valley pro Fritzley comes into his own.

Lured here five years ago by Dunne and Farrell, he's become progressively paler but retains his white-toothed Californian smile and boundless enthusiasm.

Fritzley was sales VP at Microsoft TV. "With Microsoft I travelled the world, and I could see that the networks were going to collapse under all of this video that was coming along in 2003-2005 when social networking and YouTube hit. They are going to have to completely transition -- new architecture, new technology, new software.

"I just felt that John and Tom's was the right technology. What really attracted me to them was that they'd done a phenomenal job on patenting all their intellectual property."

The likes of multi-billion-dollar revenued Cisco are now playing catch-up and Fritzley says Intune is five years ahead of the posse.

He has built up a sales team with "fantastic" contacts. "If you're a start-up, you can't depend on another equipment vendor like an Ericsson or an Alcatel or a Cisco to represent you at early stage -- their goal is to burn you out of cash so that they can buy the technology cheap.

"With your own sales force, you go after their customers, then you get traction and the big guys think 'we better partner with them before somebody else does'. It's a balance of fear and greed." A global distribution agreement has just been inked with one large equipment vendor and another is close to signing.

Would Alcatel-Lucent or Cisco not just save themselves the trouble and buy Intune out? "They will always look at that," says Fritzley, "but we don't want to sell early, we want to create this very valuable company. We would love nothing more than to go all the way through to IPO, so we're in no rush to sell.

Meanwhile, Intune is gearing for profitability. "We're not cashflow positive yet, but we are in revenue. We did about €10m last year, we hope to do €26m this year, in 2012 we're looking to do about €100m and we'll go up to €200m-€300m after that. We are targeting that for 2012 we're cashflow positive."

As well as selling Verisma, Fritzley is drumming up more money. "We're just doing our series C round right now, targeting €30m-plus for this round. I would hope to raise more than that." Intune is currently funded at €49m.

Fritzley didn't expect to be here this long. "In a few more months I qualify for permanent residency!" But he's certain the Californian sunshine deprivation will be worth it.

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Intune Networks' Verisma optical burst switch/transport platform now available... (LIGHTWAVE)

2011-05-26T02:53:00.000-07:00

Irish upstart Intune Networks says its Verisma platform, which combines optical packet switching with packet-optical transport, is now commercially available. The company also revealed its use in a second European networking project – and may have hinted at one Tier 1 carrier who may be evaluating the product for use as well.

As reported previously, Intune Networks’ Verisma platforms feature a highly distributed optical packet switching fabric – so distributed, in fact, that the fabric can perform both switching and transport functions simultaneously (see “Intune Networks readies carrier-class optical packet switching and transport”). The switching fabric comprises an optical ring network connecting multiple input/output nodes. The nodes can be 65 km apart. The nodes use lasers with extremely fast tuning capabilities to transmit packets among each other on various wavelengths. Meanwhile, a Web-based operating system offers simplified management.

The technology has been validated through use in the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network project. Intune now says the Verisma platforms will be part of a second European research project. The FP7 Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths (MAINS) project, led by Telefonica I+D, will seek to define and develop new architectures for next-generation metropolitan networks. Intune’s technology will be part of a field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011 within the project.

Meanwhile, Intune Networks CTO John Dunne told Lightwave earlier this year that the platforms also were in line for first office applications with a pair of Tier 1 carriers this summer. While the company has not provided further details on these applications, it may have dropped a hint by including a quote from Stu Elby, vice president, network and technology at Verizon, in the press release that trumpeted Verisma’s commercial availability.

“The ‘cloud’ promises to cost-effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services wherever and whenever they are requested,” Elby says in the press release. “The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centers will allow us to address hot spot issues while potentially enabling new services. Current network constraints do not permit this capability to be exploited cost-effectively, so to this end virtualized, dynamic networking will accelerate the adoption and profitability of the cloud.“

Visit Intune Networks

Intune Networks annouces the commercial release of the Verisma product line...

2011-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

Delivering the world's first whole network convergence with IT, Cloud & Web Services Dublin, Ireland, 23rd May 2011

Intune Networks announces the commercial availability of its Verisma product line, the world’s first carrier class converged switch and transport solution based on optical burst switching. Built on Intune Networks’ Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology, the product line takes on the global challenge presented by the massive increases in on-demand data traffic and delivers new levels of network efficiency, operational simplicity and service delivery agility.

Verisma is the world’s first web-enabled network platform, unlocking the full potential of network operators’ assets and virtualising the network to provide liquid bandwidth. Recognizing that the software architecture used by Web services companies to support millions of customers can be applied to the network, Intune Networks has incorporated a new operating system into the Verisma products based on the latest web services technologies. This operating system delivers an application programming interface that will allow operators to take full advantage of the flexibility of their networks to deliver an array of on-demand network-based services and prepare their networks for the applications and services of the future.

Tim Fritzley, Intune Networks CEO said “Before today’s commercial launch we have focused on validating the technical capabilities of our technology and performing early trials with large operators. We are now moving into a new phase of commercialisation as we prepare for multiple global first office applications in the second half of this year. So far the feedback from the market has confirmed our assertions and we have deep and broad engagement with the major players in the industry.”

The commercial release of the product is the culmination of a journey started over a decade ago by John Dunne and Tom Farrell, who founded Intune Networks in Dublin in 1999. Intune Networks’ technology has already under-gone extensive operator validation, including deployment in the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network and as part of the MAINS project, led by Telefonica I+D, the research & development branch of Telefonica. The MAINS program is an European research project composed by universities, companies and research centres which aims to define and develop new architectural solutions for next generation metropolitan networks able to absorb new traffic demands generated fixed and mobile broadband access technologies.

The Exemplar Test-bed Program is a communications services test-bed provided by the Irish government’s Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR) as a magnet to attract and expand leading edge research and development in Ireland for next generation Web and ICT services. Intune Networks’ Verisma product family was selected as the foundation for the Exemplar lab Test-bed and allows the test bed to provide the flexible network architecture and simplified software operations and control interfaces required by the next generation of carrier services.

In the FP7 MAINS project, which is planning an OPST field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011, the underlying driver is to develop a response to the fact that the current network architectures were never designed to cope with the new demands driven by emerging broadband Internet services like over-the-top video delivery, social networking and cloud computing. MAINS project leader, Juan Pedro Fernandez-Palacios Gimenez from Telefόnica I+D Ultrabroadband Networks area, commented “The proposed MAINS (Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths) architecture targets a new architectural solution that will be able to face the huge expected traffic increase in a more cost-effective way. This architecture will be needed in order to assure a low cost broadband Internet access in Europe”.

With its commercial launch, the Verisma product line will begin to be deployed in the field to support a number of applications, such as cloud computing, mobile backhaul and metro optical aggregation. With its ability to provide mesh networking, dynamic bandwidth allocation and software-defined networking, the solution has been attracting attention for data centre interconnect and network-as-a-service applications.

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Exemplar Network to go live in four weeks...

2011-05-24T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Irish Government-backed Exemplar Network – a smart communications network that will serve as a magnet for foreign direct investment and help to incubate indigenous job creation – will go live for test and trial in four weeks, Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte, TD, explained.

Rabbitte was speaking at the TM Forum Management World conference, an influential global telecoms industry conference that is being held in Dublin this week.

“The Exemplar Network will give Ireland a true competitive advantage in the key area of information and communications technology. It will raise the reputation of Ireland as a leader in technological innovation, act as a magnet for foreign direct investment and serve as an incubator for indigenous job creation.

“We will now bring together ICT companies who wish to be involved in and are willing to invest in the development of a Test and Trial Network.”

The minister has asked the ESB, through its telecoms subsidiary, to assist in the establishment of the forum and to support the implementation of the Trial Network.

The purpose of the Test and Trial Network
The purpose of the Test and Trial Network will be to install the Exemplar technology on fibre in a live environment, so companies can test new products and services with real customers and users.

The Exemplar Network, in which the State invested €10m with Intune Networks, has already created 140 jobs and by the third phase thousands of jobs, from digital media to high-end computing, green tech and life sciences, could be created as organisations will be attracted by the speed and capability of the network.

The Test and Trial Network is phase II of the Government’s Exemplar project. It follows the establishment of a test-bed site, in phase I of this project, where companies could test products in a laboratory type environment.

The first phase of the Exemplar programme, the Exemplar Test-bed, which is 100pc owned by the State, was opened in July 2010 and provides a laboratory environment, open to companies and researchers, to develop, test and demonstrate products and services of the future. Current industry partners using the Exemplar Test-bed include BT, Ericsson, Openet, Amartus, HEAnet, Cybercom, Imagine, ESB Telecom, Sensecom and Digiweb.

The Exemplar Smart Communications programme is based on an advanced optical communications technology. It exploits the innovative and disruptive optical packet switching and transport (OPST) technology developed by Irish company Intune Networks. This technology has the capacity to revolutionise the transmission of data across fibre networks by allowing data to be transferred more efficiently across these networks. The technology, if successful, will put Ireland firmly on the technology map worldwide, in terms of next-generation communications networks.

The ESB is a commercial semi-state energy company which operates under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Through its subsidiary company, ESB Telecoms Ltd, ESB has optimised the use of electricity assets to establish itself as a vital participant in the wholesale telecoms market in Ireland.

Companies interested in investing in the Exemplar Test and Trial Network should contact the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources at exemplarnetwork@dcenr.ie.

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BT to test ‘liquid bandwidth’ cloud developed by Irish firms

2011-05-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

Telecoms giant BT will be the first telecoms firm to test the Exemplar Dynamic Desktop, a cloud solution to enable firms to deliver bandwidth on demand, developed by Intune Networks, Openet and Amartus.

The project will be showcased during TM Forum Management World, a global telecoms exhibition, taking place in Dublin next week (23-26 May 2011). The TM forum serves a specialised niche in the telecoms world, the systems end of telecoms, or as one industry person says: “where the network meets the dollars.”

The Liquid Bandwidth solution created as part of the Catalyst Project by Intune Networks, Openet and Amartus (a company created by ex-Ericsson and Marconi workers in Ireland) allows operators to increase a customer’s bandwidth remotely from a desktop.

The Catalyst project is based on Intune Networks' Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology, Amartus Service Commander and Openet’s Policy Charging and Control (PCC). The project is a pre-cursor to developing the toolset needed to create a distributed data centre based upon cloud services.

The battle for bandwidth
Bandwidth demands on carriers’ networks are growing exponentially while revenues and profits are decoupled from the cost of delivering the network. Carriers are able to respond to this challenge through service innovation and new revenue generating products.

The demonstration next week will show how carriers can offer innovation and network monetisation via a programmable network API linked to the TM Forum MTOSI Services standards.

“Liquid bandwidth services will empower customers to purchase bandwidth when needed in a cost-effective and timely manner that closely tracks their real hour-by-hour and day-by-day bandwidth requirements with the comfort that the network can 'flex' to meet any unanticipated demands,” said Peter Willis, chief data network strategist from BT Innovate & Design.

“It allows network operators to monetise these services and optimises revenues from its network investments. This Exemplar Catalyst illustrates technology that can achieve these aims, allowing more creative commercial relationships with customers that better meets the vicissitudes of emerging traffic patterns and customer expectations.”

Intune Networks co-founder John Dunne said that BT, which is one of Europe’s largest telecoms carriers, will be looking at the technology in terms of how it will help operators generate more revenue and how the technology can scale within networks.

“If a user isn’t happy with their quality of service for video, for example, operators can use the interface to increase the quality of that video. They can also take a calendar-based approach to deploying bandwidth quality based on certain times of the day."

The coming together of three Irish technology companies to create a product that will be showcased in front of some of the world’s most senior telecoms executives has been praised by Enterprise Ireland’s head of research and innovation, Fearghal Ó Móráin.

“Openet, InTune and Amartus are three of Ireland’s most dynamic and innovative companies. It is an exciting development to see such leading technology firms collaborating on this ground-breaking technology.

“Showcasing this cutting-edge technology at the international TM forum is important for the companies themselves but it will also highlight Ireland’s significant technological capabilities on a global stage.”

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Intune shortlisted amoung Entrepreneur of the Year finalists... Irish Times

2011-05-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

TWENTY FOUR leading business people in Ireland have been shortlisted for this year’s Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

The nominees have been chosen across three categories – Emerging, industry and international.

Nominees include Ray Coyle of Largo Food Exports, which makes Tayto crisps in the Republic; Galway developer Miceal Sammon of Sammon Contracting Group; Conor McCarthy, founder of two-year-old aircraft maintenance group Dublin Aerospace; and Domini and Peaches Kemp of Itsabagel.

They were chosen from a record 140 nominations by an 11-strong panel of judges chaired by Pádraig Ó Ceidigh, chairman of Aer Arann and winner of the award in 2002.

The 24 businesses have a combined turnover of about €600 million and employ 11,000 people.

The entrepreneurs will be offered the opportunity to participate in the awards’ annual CEO Retreat, which this year involves a week-long trip to India in June.

The Entrepreneur of the Year award was won in 2010 by Brian Conlon, chief executive of First Derivatives. He will represent Ireland at the World Entrepreneur of the Year awards in Monte Carlo in early June.

Profiles of the finalists will appear in The Irish Times over the next six weeks.

The winner will be announced at a televised awards ceremony in October.

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year: The Finalists

Emerging:

Annadale Technologies – Denis McCarthy
Blue Insurances Ltd/ Multitrip.com – Ciaran Mulligan Rowan Devereux
Bubblebum UK Ltd – Grainne Kelly
Joule – Ronan Ginnell Ian Barrett
Crospon – John ODea
Crowley Carbon Ltd – Norman Crowley
The Now Factory – Tom Morrisroe
Dublin Aerospace – Conor McCarthy

Industry:

Homecare Independent Living – Mairead Mackle
PFH Technology Group Limited – Paul Hourican
Itsabagel Ltd – Domini Peaches Kemp
Largo Food Exports – Raymond Coyle
Noonan – John ODonoghue
Argento – Peter Boyle
Centre For English Studies – Justin Quinn
Version 1 – Justin Keatinge

International:

Openet – Joe Hogan Niall Norton
Telestack Limited – Adrian McCutcheon
Texthelp Systems Limited – Mark McCusker
MJM Group – Brian McConville
Munster Simms Eng Ltd (Whale Water Systems) – Patrick Hurst
XSP – Brendan Farrell
Intune Networks Ltd – John Dunne
Sammon Contracting Group Ltd – Miceal Sammon

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Intune Networks receives European funding in £1.7M - Radio-Electronics.com

2011-05-10T04:35:00.000-07:00

Belfast based optical transport technology provider, Intune Networks has secured funding in a £1.7million multinational initiative aiming to deliver ultra-high-speed internet access to meet the growing needs of homes and businesses across Europe.

Intune Networks’ Active Distributed and Dynamic Optical Network Access Systems (ADDONAS) will aim to develop photonic technology and systems that would enable widespread broadband access of at least 1 Gbit/s by 2015-20. Intune Networks will receive £520,000 funding as part of the wider programme.

The PIANO+ initiative, spearheaded by the European Commission (EC) and co-funded by the UK government-backed Technology Strategy Board, called for collaborative research and development proposals under the EC’s ERA-NET Plus scheme[i]. PIANO+ aims to promote investment in the development of next-generation optical access technologies that will significantly reduce the operational and capital costs of super-fast broadband by removing local exchanges.

Using the funding from PIANO+, Intune Networks has developed a low-cost, lower energy technology that will enable ultra-fast broadband speeds in the future while still meeting the short-term needs of the system operators and users. ADDONAS architecture was selected because it aims to bring faster broadband connections while reducing the total energy bill for operators and users by over 50%.

A similar programme was initiated by Google in 2010. Google has started building and testing ultra-fast broadband access networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States including Kansas City, aiming to offer communities up to 100 times faster broadband than most Americans currently have[ii].

“It is apparent with the roll out of Google’s Kansas City initiative that ultra-fast broadband is becoming increasingly important as demands for bandwidth multiply”. “The ADDONAS architecture will change today’s concept of access networks relying on passive transport elements into distributed networks using elements in the delivery services,” commented John Dunne, CTO, Intune Networks. “ADDONAS will achieve this by using a three stage distributed ‘Layer 2’ switch to compress the metro and access networks.” The ADDONAS architecture aims to make the network programmable and allow it to be engineered to deliver quality of service, QoS, guarantees for end to end users. As well as be scalable up to 64TBit/s of total capacity to enable economical end to end support for symmetrical 1Gbit/s access to end users, it aims to provide full transmission for both point to point and switched services.

“A wave of applications is driving the need for the internet to deliver guaranteed quality of service which it is unable to do at the moment,” said Greg May, Technology Strategy Board. “This joint transnational approach towards supporting developments in fibre access technology is harnessing the collaborative expertise of Europe’s most innovative companies to facilitate a common technology platform. We want to see photonic technology and systems for a scalable, future-proofed and energy-efficient access network.”

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Intune raises €2.5m in additional funding - Sunday Business Post

2011-05-09T04:34:00.001-07:00

Telecoms equipment developer Intune Networks has raised another €2.5 million in equity funding. New filings for the firm indicate that it received a €2 million cash injection last month from Dartbridge, a British Virgin Islands registered company. It also received €500,000 from Enterprise Ireland, writes Dick O’Brien.

Intune last year raised €2 million from Erine, another Virgin Islands registered firm.

The company declined to comment on who was behind these companies or whether the two had a common ownership. Intune has raised a significant amount of capital from investors in recent years. In 2009, it raised €22 million from financier Dermot Desmond, Kernel Capital in Cork and its existing investors.

This followed a 2007 funding round which saw it receive €13 million from Amadeus Capital Partners, Balderton Capital and Spark Capital.

Early stage backers of the firm included ICC Venture Capital, latterly Bank of Scotland (Ireland), Enterprise Ireland and technology investors Leonard Donnelly and Bernie Dillon.

Intune develops technologies to improve the performance of fibre-optic networks and is currently bringing a family of telecom switch products to market.

The firm now employs over 120 people and has offices in Dublin and Belfast, with sales offices in Britain and the United States.

The company was founded in Dublin in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell and it is currently led by Tim Fritzley, who was formerly head of Microsoft TV in the US.

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Intune Networks readies carrier-class optical packet switching and transport... - LIGHTWAVE

2011-04-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

Ireland’s Intune Networks is readying a carrier-class version of its Verisma optical packet switched transport platform for first office applications with a pair of Tier 1 customers this summer. As its name implies the platform – which will be marketed as the iVX8000 CR2.x – combines all-optical packet switching and transport by replacing the silicon-based switch fabric of typical switches with an optical ring that could extend as far as 300 km in circumference. Intune Networks has aimed the Verisma line initially at router bypass and router interconnection applications, which would put it squarely in competition with such platforms as Juniper Networks’ recently announced PTX Series Packet Transport Switch.

How it works
As described to Lightwave by John Dunne, Intune Networks’ CTO, the Verisma technology starts with the same elements as a typical data switch. As illustrated below, that includes input/output (I/O) networking elements, switch control elements, and a switch fabric that distributes packets from one I/O to another.

Intune Networks essentially makes each I/O element optical and gives each of these elements their own switch control features. This makes elements independent and potentially distributed entities. The elements are linked together by a fiber ring that acts as the optical switch fabric, as illustrated here:

Each I/O element can be 65 km apart, Dunne says. So as the fabric is switching packets from one element to another, it’s also transporting the packets from one location to another.

The switch function combines rapidly tunable laser transmitters with DWDM technology. Each I/O element receives packets on a known wavelength (or, if you’re operating at greater than 10 Gbps, wavelengths). If packets need to go from I/O #1 to I/O #4, I/O #1 transmits its packets on wavelength(s) assigned to I/O #4. It then can switch at nanosecond speeds to the wavelength(s) assigned to other elements as traffic warrants. Meanwhile, each element’s switch control feature monitors traffic on the ring to avoid packet collisions:

The result is completely protocol-agnostic optical packet switching, according to Dunne. Each ring could support 80 ports and 10 to 16 chassis, depending upon configuration, Dunne says. Capacity could be expanded by linking multiple rings, he adds. A second ring connecting each I/O element provides resiliency.

In addition to the novel packet switching concept, Intune Networks has adopted a provisioning approach based on the representational state transfer scheme commonly found in Web applications. This simplifies access to switching capacity and enables carriers to easily design new service applications and provide wholesale customers with the ability to provision their own capacity, Dunne says.

Next steps
Intune Networks supplied its first Verisma systems to the Irish Government, which has received 24 of the platforms for its Exemplar Smart Communications Network. Dunne says that Intune Networks has added support for Provider Bridge E-Line services for the iVX8000 CR2.x that its first carrier customers will receive. Future versions of the iVX8000 CR2.x will support Provider Edge E-LAN and E-Tree as well as MPLS-TP, he says.

Dunne declined to identify his company’s first carrier customers, other than to say that one is in the United States and the other is in Europe.

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The revolution will be televised - The Irish Times

2011-03-25T03:15:00.000-07:00

The Intune Networks team, Tom Farrell, John Dunne, Tommy Mullane and Jim Shields, celebrate their win.

INNOVATOR OF THE YEAR : From transmitting a Snow Patrol gig live to creating the next-generation communications infrastructure Exemplar, Intune is pushing the boundaries of bandwidth

THE AMOUNT OF data on the internet is huge and is doubling every 11 months. This is causing severe bottlenecks, particularly in areas where major events such as the Olympics or the World Cup are being held. Irish company Intune Networks has come up with an answer to this issue: it has developed advanced optical networking products that give carriers and internet service providers the capacity to meet growing demands for bandwidth.

Founders John Dunne and Tom Farrell say their offering is commercial and scalable. It allows network operators to dynamically deliver bandwidth to where it is needed, whenever it is needed. So, if there is a sudden surge in demand in east London during the Olympics, the network capacity can be ramped up instantly to deal with it.

Current network infrastructure is largely based on the traditional voice telephony carrier network and is not designed to cope with a massive increase in unpredictable traffic demand. Its architecture is static, circuit-based, hub-and-spoke and deployed on a “best guess” basis. Scalability is limited and capacity is pre-configured and stranded, so the network struggles to cope with sudden and transient traffic demands.

Operators can build in overcapacity to cater for such eventualities – but this compromises profitability and is unsustainable in the longer term.

Most solutions perpetuate the existing architectures, which cannot meet the requirements of dynamic networks. They address the symptoms rather than the causes of the problem.

Intune Networks’ solution is the world’s first “whole network virtualisation” platform. This programmable network can be reshaped at any time under the direction of the network operator, or its customers. The result is a self-service provisioning model that supports multiple business and service models.

Intune’s solution allows network operators to deploy new services in real time with carrier-class reliability and guaranteed quality of experience.

The technology also has environmental benefits. Telecomms companies consume a significant amount of energy, but Intune’s technology can reduce the figure by 50 to 70 per cent.

The Government has recognised Intune’s capability in this area and has chosen the company to build Ireland’s Exemplar Network, a fibre-optic communications network using patented technology that allows for the high-speed and high-quality transfer of electronic data. More than 30 companies and institutions have signed up to use the Exemplar testbed, including BT, Imagine, EMC, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway, UCD and DCU. The Government has invested €10 million in funding the building of the Exemplar Network using Intune’s technology.

The company has 130 employees at its headquarters in Dublin and its research and development centre in Belfast, which is developing key subsystems for this new product line. The technology has been validated by top communications carriers and is undergoing field trials for cloud computing as part of a European project led by Telefonica. Intune gave the first demonstration of its technology at the Other Voices Festival in 2009 when it built a fibre optic ring around Dingle to transmit a Snow Patrol performance live. Last year, it expanded the transmission to a number of venues for the event.

It is also attracting significant levels of investment and it raised €29 million in venture capital last year.

In the next five years, Intune aims to establish its business in Europe, North America, India and Africa, and to have created thousands of jobs in the process.

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John Dunne, CTO of Intune Networks, interviewed at MWC 2011...

2011-03-13T08:00:00.000-07:00

At Mobile World Congress 2011, Martyn Warwick speaks with John Dunne, CTO of Intune Networks about how the architecture of networks has had to change in order to cope with the current "data tsunami."

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Intune Networks Innovational Win...

2011-03-04T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Irish Times and InterTradeIreland presented Intune Networks with the ‘Innovation of the Year' award in Dublin yesterday evening. Intune Networks has triumphed over 120 companies such as Celtic Catalysts, Dublin; Kingspawn Renewable Ltd., Armagh and Vennetics of Dublin, to secure themselves as the overall winner of the six category competition. They will receive a communications and advertising package from the Irish Times worth €200,000.

Intune Networks aims to revolutionise the telecoms industry by changing the opportunities for service providers. They are setting out to alter network architectures to cope with traffic demand for internet service providers. Intune Networks has developed a technology named Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) that is hoped to alleviate bottlenecks across systems. The company has ambitious expansion plans and has received over €49 million in funding from investors to date.

Commenting on the awards, Liam Nellis, Chief Executive of InterTradeIreland and Chair of the Innovation awards final judging panel said: "These awards are designed to recognise the best innovations in businesses across the island of Ireland. Intune Networks is an excellent example of company that is at the pinnacle of innovation. For 30 years, laboratories have attempted to achieve what has been achieved by Intune Networks over the last 4 years. Intune Networks is an indigenous company that has developed a product with the potential to revolutionise the telecoms industry on a global scale."

Receiving the award, Intune CTO John Dunne commented: "We are delighted and amazed to be selected as the overall winner, as this is such a high-profile awards programme. It is a fantastic honour for all at Intune and a great recognition for our team of engineers in particular who have worked for over 4 years on a networking innovation that we believe will open up the network for application developers."

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IT company wins Innovation of the Year award - Belfast Telegraph

2011-03-03T02:45:00.000-08:00

A HIGH-tech Belfast company has won an award for innovation at an all-Ireland ceremony.

Intune Networks, which employs 45 people at its office in Belfast, is the overall 'Innovation of the Year' winner at the second annual Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation awards.

The company will receive a communications and advertising package from the Irish Times worth €200,000 (£170,000).

Headquartered in Dublin with offices in Weaver's Court in Belfast, the firm was established in 1999 by Tom Farrell and John Dunne, both graduates of UCD, and employs 120 people, including 45 in Belfast. It also has offices in the US and mainland UK.

The company has ambitious expansion plans and has received over €49m (£38m) from investors to date.

Intune Networks is developing networks to cope with unpredictable traffic demand for internet service providers, while controlling costs.

The advent of online video content and cloud computing has put a strain on networks that has resulted in greater demand and Intune Networks' breakthrough technology Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) will help alleviate bottlenecks across systems.

Liam Nellis, chief executive of InterTradeIreland and chair of the Innovation Awards final judging panel hailed the firm, saying: "For 30 years, laboratories have attempted to achieve what has been achieved by Intune Networks over the last four years."

Intune Networks chief technical officer John Dunne said he was delighted to see the company lift the award.

"It is a fantastic honour for all at Intune and a great recognition for our team of engineers in particular, who have worked for over four years on a networking innovation that we believe will open up the network for application developers," he said.

Portadown-based Kingspan Renewables was named as the winner of the GreenTech category at the awards.

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Intune Networks wins innovation award for optical packet switch design - The Times

2011-03-03T01:47:00.000-08:00

Intune Networks wins innovation award for optical packet switch design Winners of the overall Innovation of the Year Award, Intune Networks at the InterTradeIreland Irish Times Innovation Awards last night. Prof Tom Begley, UCD, presenter of award; John Dunne, Tom Farrell, Jim Shields and Tommy Mullane.Winners of the overall Innovation of the Year Award, Intune Networks at the InterTradeIreland Irish Times Innovation Awards last night. Prof Tom Begley, UCD, presenter of award; John Dunne, Tom Farrell, Jim Shields and Tommy Mullane.Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons

TECHNOLOGY FIRM Intune Networks scooped the top award at The Irish Times/InterTradeIreland Innovation Awards last night.

Intune, which has its headquarters in Dublin, won the overall Innovation of the Year award at a ceremony in the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham, Dublin.

The firm, which was established in 1999 by Tom Farrell and John Dunne and now employs 120 people, will receive a communications and advertising package worth €200,000 from The Irish Times .

“We sometimes get caught up in the finer points of policies and strategies at a national level without appreciating the people who are putting all the fine words into practice,” Liam Kavanagh, Irish Times managing director said. “That’s what this event tonight – and indeed our monthly Innovation magazine – is all about.”

Liam Nellis, InterTradeIreland chief executive and chairman of the final judging panel, described Intune Networks as an excellent example of a company that was at the pinnacle of innovation.

Intune chief technology officer John Dunne said it was a “fantastic honour” and a “a great recognition for our team of engineers in particular”.

Intune has developed breakthrough technology known as optical packet switch and transport which is designed to alleviate bottlenecks across networks. To date, the company has received more than €49 million in funding from investors.

Kingspan Renewables won the Green-Tech category award, while Celtic Catalysts came out on top in the Application of RD section.

Other category winners included Vennetics, Fitzgerald Nurseries, AMNCH (Tallaght Hospital) and Ammado.

More than 120 companies entered the competition. Twenty of these were shortlisted, before the final winners were selected.

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The ones to back in the race to the future...

2011-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Leading economies globally are anxiously staking out territory in the next-generation internet. However, with many research centres already operating in this area, Ireland has a head start

THE INFORMATION super highway is getting congested. It is also growing more powerful, with new applications and functionality becoming available almost every day. These developments have led to moves to define the next-generation internet, increasingly referred to as the “future internet”.

The scope and functionality of this future internet will be much broader than that of the internet we know today. Its core infrastructure will incorporate sensor networks, as well as wireless and fixed communications networks. Access and management of data, plus issues of privacy and accountability, are central to its development. However, its most important feature will be its focus on service, which will mean an emphasis on applications supporting all aspects of society, from health to education to commerce.

These developments will undoubtedly create opportunities in science, engineering and related fields. Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) recently hosted a high-level workshop to explore how Ireland can take advantage of such opportunities and establish itself as a leading force in the field.

The workshop brought together experts from industry and large research centres engaged in next-generation web technologies and applications. It offered an opportunity to map out a strategic plan for engagement at national and international level in a sector that affects virtually every aspect of life in today’s world.

Other countries have been quick to stake out territory.

“A move is now on by advanced economies to define and deliver next-generation internet, recognising its influential role as a driver of economic growth,” says Professor Fionn Murtagh, director of SFI’s Information, Communications and Emergent Technologies Directorate. “The US, South Korea, Japan, Australia, South Africa and Europe have already established major future internet initiatives.”

In Europe, 27 countries have established national initiatives to roll out future internet testbeds and trial services with a view to becoming early adopters in this field. “To take just one example, Spain invested over €300 million in future internet initiatives in the past year,” says Prof Murtagh.

“Ireland is now focused on formulating a comprehensive research and innovation road map that identifies our capacity to excel in this space, and the means by which we will attain such excellence.”

“The internet is becoming stressed with all the traffic and data it’s carrying,” adds Dr Sandra Collins, scientific programme manager with SFI. “There is already more data out there than you could read in a lifetime and it is doubling every 11 months.

“The future of the internet is partly about trying to understand what’s on it, as well as making the information more accessible. It’s also about making sure the infrastructure can carry all the data and services, as well as about the development of new applications and functions which take advantage of the increased power of that infrastructure.”

According to Dr Collins, Ireland has a disproportionate number of research centres operating in this area. This gives us a head start which can be exploited.

“SFI has invested more than €200 million to date in research that will build the future internet. SFI is funding five different Centres for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSets) in this area. We also have a large number of companies – such as IBM, Bell Labs and Ericsson – which collaborate in research and take the products of that research. Alongside that, we have many Irish SMEs – like Intune Networks, which develops network architecture to cope with the massive increase in unpredictable traffic demand.”

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Innovation Awards the Countdown - Irish Times

2011-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Shortlists for The Irish Times InterTradeIreland Innovation
Awards have been drawn up – and it was no easy task, writes MICHAEL McALEER

IT WAS A LONG and challenging day for the judges of this year’s Innovation Awards, with 21 company presentations to sit through and discuss, but the resounding response was that it rekindled a belief that Irish businesses can overcome the challenges they face.

The breadth of the shortlisted candidates and their inventiveness demonstrated the determination and innovation that’s often cloaked from view by the overwhelming national concern about the economy.

A look at the final shortlisted companies, ranging from public sector reformers to high-end IT or pharma innovators, offers a window into the depth of talent in Ireland.

...

Of the 21 selected companies, Intune Networks have been shorlisted in the Product Innovation category:

PRODUCT INNOVATION:
Intune Networks was founded in 1999 by two UCD graduates, John Dunne and Tom Farrell. It has developed advanced optical networking products that give carriers and internet service providers the capacity to meet growing demands for bandwidth.

An explosion in video content and emerging models for cloud-based services have put a strain on networks that is likely to get worse. Bottlenecks will be alleviated by what Dunne refers to as the “Holy Grail of networking”.

For 30 years, laboratories and universities had identified optical packet switching technology as the way forward but it took Dunne and Farrell to come up with a clever piece of IP that made it commercial and scalable.

Early investors were found in Britain and the US, as their Irish counterparts opted for property over technology.

More than 30 companies and institutions have signed up to use the testbed, including BT, Imagine, EMC, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway, UCD and DCU. The Government has also invested €10 million towards the build of the Exemplar Network using Intune technology (pictured left).

...

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Network Conundrum for a Web Service World - Intune Networks

2011-01-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

"The era of static and predictable service traffic has been consigned to history"

The era of dynamic and unpredictable services traffic is now. Carrier networks, still designed with the operational requirement for accurate prediction of service traffic, have only seen incremental improvements rather than step change. Network operators must consider radical options to support future bandwidth demands for next generation services.

During the last decade internet and web services have become the de facto medium for communications, entertainment, information, and work. Service growth has followed exponentially, fusing spectacularly to the extent that it is difficult, or indeed impossible, to differentiate the service delivered and/or to distinguish the role that the consumer is performing. Yet despite these advancements in services, there has been no significant development or change to the primary network optical transport network since their introduction.

Networking mantra appears to have been to build the biggest optical pipes possible, at the lowest capital cost and fill them as full as possible. No serious consideration however has been given to the underlying services, resulting in ‘hub and spoke’ architectures being unnecessarily too big and costly with the spokes not connecting where the services need to be. The impact is significant increases in OPEX and TCO with low levels of asset utilisation. Network operators now need to fundamentally re-think their approach to meet future business demands.

Meanwhile, new market dynamics have created an environment where the pressures and demands on a carriers’ network and operations are growing exponentially whilst revenues and profits are simultaneously shrinking dramatically. Whilst innovation and investment has been made in IP routing and consumer devices, very little has changed in the underlying packet switching and optical fibre network that interconnect the IP based servers and routers to the IP enabled consumer devices.

Web services by their nature are dynamic and unpredictable and with increasingly set of video rich features - demanding ever increasing bandwidth per service and guaranteed quality of experience. However, the dilemma is that current carrier networks are managed and provisioned based upon predicted future patterns of usage from historical data that has taken days, weeks, and months to collate and is then analysed as a basis to predict and formulate future network changes. It is well acknowledged that accurate forward CAPEX investment planning for the network based on historical data is an increasingly impossible task to achieve, whilst being an exceptionally slow and costly process.

In addition, carriers have been unable to align their business and operational models and keep pace with the market and consumer demands – and therefore revenue opportunities. This discontinuity has created an overly complex, static, and unresponsive network infrastructure that continues to be disconnected from the services value chain.

The largest fixed cost within the carrier business is typically the network infrastructure which has remained largely the same – hierarchical and asymmetrical from the core through the metro to the access, whilst new services are symmetrical in profile, and hosted from a variety of distributed rather than centralised sources. Whilst service providers have strived to reduce operational costs through functional consolidation, process improvement and workforce reduction - fixed costs such as power and real estate remain very high and are directly correlated to the size and complexity of the network.

In the face of rapidly declining margins on traditional products and services, the service provider has been prevented in responding to the competitive market pressure to compete through service innovation and monetisation of new product revenues. This is not unsurprising as the current legacy network is hugely inflexible; it is unable to support introduction of new services and pricing models due to the lack of correlation of services carried to network resources consumed. This fact alone directly prevents the innovation and monetisation of new revenue models.

The legacy of tactical investment coupled with a lack of step change innovation by the traditional vendors has resulted in a network architecture that is a barrier to business. The network architecture is connection oriented – yet being tasked to deliver connectionless traffic. As a result, the current network technologies can never match the business economics to deliver the required level of service and associated lowest level of TCO – for any given service – resulting in a fundamental destabilisation of the business model.

Hub and spoke networks (by definition designed for connection-orientated traffic) are struggling because web services (connectionless protocols) have became the primary delivery vehicle for all services – including the rapid growth area of online video. Meanwhile, network operators also face the challenge that new demands for HD video need to be met with guaranteed bandwidth and low latency only afforded by connection-oriented networks.

Carriers now need to consider adopting transformational innovation versus continuing the deployment of repackaged hybrid products of today. The capability of this innovation must deliver automatic and dynamic response to any mix of incoming service flow traffic requirements - allocating network resources appropriately that are based upon the quality of service tiers required. To achieve this requires a fundamental change and reduction in the complexity of the network.

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Transforming Mobile Backhaul Networks...

2011-01-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) face increasing challenges if they are to maintain pace with surging data demand from owners of Smart Phones and Net Book devices. Traditional 2G/2.5G/3G networks were never designed to support the enormous wave of data generated by video and social network Web services. The transition to LTE, alongside increasingly powerful smart mobile devices, will exacerbate MNOs’ challenges and increase the risk of network brownouts, negatively impacting quality of service and customer satisfaction and increasing churn.

This voice-centric medium, based on complex telephony signalling and control planes, must be replaced with a packet and Web services-centric medium that is cheap to deploy, operate and maintain. Not only must this network cope with demand from new
mobile devices but also new services such as mobile access to cloud computing, software as a service, and location-based applications.

Intune Networks has developed a next-generation networking platform that delivers no less than ‘game changing transformation’. Optimised for mobile backhaul, the platform supports 3G and legacy services while enabling rapid transition to LTE. As both generations share a common backhaul network, Intune’s solution significantly lowers total cost of ownership (TCO), while allowing for the rapid deployment of revenue generating Web services that require high quality, on-demand network access.

The platform is built on Intune’s innovative and world-leading Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology. OPST combines distributed layer-2 packet switching with optical burst-mode transport in a single function, on a single platform. The result is lower capex, as less equipment is needed; and lower opex, as operations and control are greatly simplified. Crucially for today’s carriers, the OPST tunable network adapts in real time to bursty and unpredictable traffic. The result is a high level of performance that allows the MNO to guarantee QoS and SLAs with confidence. In addition, the platform is service- and protocol-agnostic, so able to carry multiple service types simultaneously.

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Freeing the Cloud - Intune Networks

2011-01-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

Virtualisation has transformed the efficiency of the data centre, allowing IT resources and associated costs to be shared across multiple applications and users. If telecom carriers could simply extend this model into the network, they would provide the ideal environment for delivery of Cloud services. Drawing on a vast pool of reusable network resources, the user’s experience of the Cloud would then be indistinguishable from that of locally-accessed services.

The problem with this vision is that carrier network infrastructure is poorly suited to virtualisation. Telecom networks have developed over decades to meet a wide variety of needs. The constant evolution of technology and customer demands has encouraged growth of relatively rigid architectures requiring careful management and long-term planning. Specific equipment is often configured to deliver specific services, and so the separation of hardware and service required for virtualisation is difficult - if not impossible - to achieve.

This highly structured approach was appropriate in the past, but is now at odds with the Internet philosophy of instant response and limitless flexibility. This leaves carriers unable to take full advantage of the Cloud phenomenon and end users unable to enjoy the promised cost savings.

Intune Networks’ solution is the world’s first ‘whole network virtualisation’ platform. The iVX8000 is a fully programmable, services-oriented architecture capable of responding in real time to unpredictable and rapidly changing demand.

This White Paper explains how virtualisation, now commonplace in data centres, delivers the same benefits of resource and cost efficiency in the carrier network. Intune’s vastly simplified architecture is low cost to operate and easily configured to realise the potential of new revenue streams - such as Cloud services. Carriers that can both virtualise and programme their networks are empowered to deploy new services at unprecedented speed with lowest cost.

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Intune Networks Core Innovation - OPST

2011-01-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

Optical Packet Switch & Transport (OPST) is a distributed optical switch fabric technology that uses ultra fast tuning lasers to provide fully meshed, any-to-any resilient port connectivity, and is service and data format agnostic.

Every port attached to the OPST fabric has a Fast Tuneable Laser (FTL) and Burst Mode Receiver (BMR) under that port’s local control. The system assigns a unique wavelength to each BMR, so as ingress packets are queued by class of service per wavelength. The laser is tuned in real-time (nanoseconds) and multi-service frames are launched to the chosen destination via the assigned wavelength. Each port, can therefore, send and receive frames to and from all other ports providing a fully distributed switching capability with no intervening OEO between source and destination.

The OPST architecture provides unequalled and elegant linear scalability as well as operational efficiency. As new ports are individually added to the optical mesh fabric the optical paths are discovered and the logical data paths are assigned non-blocking connectivity to the new ports on the OPST meshed fabric.

iVX8000 has the unique ability to respond dynamically to changes in network service traffic demands while maintaining guaranteed class of service commitments. Access to this dynamic infrastructure is fully programmable and available via the Restful Web Services interface.

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Industries of the future - Silicon Republic

2010-12-16T01:54:00.000-08:00

JOHN KENNEDY looks at the industries of tomorrow that will put our economy back on the path to prosperity.

We've spent so much time looking back at what went wrong in Ireland that perhaps it's apt to look forward and figure out what growth potential is left to allow us to one day shatter the shackles imposed by our new economic overlords...

"Exports are up 6pc, manufacturing output is up by 10pc. That's coming from the productive element of the Irish economy and it's not being reported. Where other countries' exports are falling behind, Ireland's are growing."

It is important to give future generations of school leavers - and their parents - some ray of hope and allow them to prepare for the industries of the future...

Already believing is a Dublin-based technology company called Intune Networks. Intune's technology enables telecoms firms to run different services - from e-commerce to high-definition gaming - to thousands of households on a single strand of fibre cable.

"People talk about smart grids and a smarter planet, but really what they are talking about is smart infrastructure," says CEO Tim Fritzley. "The future of the internet is the internet of things, and the internet of things or the semantic web is primarily machines talking to machines with humans to guide them occasionally."

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Future of metro-wide fibre rings clear on Europe’s western edge - Silicon Republic

2010-12-07T02:40:00.000-08:00

In one of Ireland’s most picturesque towns located on one of Europe’s most western-most coasts, another piece of telecoms history was made last night.

As rock and roll royalty belted out the tunes from a tiny church in Dingle, Co Kerry, the ability to broadcast to numerous locations by tuning the speed of light on a single strand of fibre optic was ably demonstrated.

As far as John Dunne, co-founder of Dublin firm Intune Networks is concerned, the broadcasting of the ‘Other Voices’ performance by Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley from St James’ Church in Dingle to several local hotels and pubs is just a tiny demonstration of what really is in store. This is just a year after a similar feat was demonstrated during Snow Patrol's performance at 'Other Voices'.

Dunne envisages a period in the not too distant future where Intune’s technology will enable potentially millions of people across wide geographic areas to be able to enjoy simultaneous speed-of-light entertainment on demand from a variety of telecoms providers.

Dunne’s vision is so vast on this one that he considers the internet a mere "application" of what’s coming – a world where high-definition gaming, TV, internet and video conferencing will reach thousands of homes with zero latency.

While revellers in nearby hostelries were able to interact last night with the band playing in the church down the street via fibre purposely laid out in the iconic Kerry town for the occasion, what Intune is trying to resolve is a growing headache for telecoms operators around the world.

The end of the internet as we know it?

Put simply, the internet as we know in terms of internet protocol (IP) traffic is barely able to keep up with demand. For example, when the iPhone debuted for the first time, mobile operators complained of a two-thirds spike in traffic caused by a tiny minority of early adopters.

The sheer stress being put on existing copper and cable networks by the growing volume of people sharing pictures and videos on Facebook, uploading videos to YouTube and holding real-time video conferences on Skype is leading to greater threats of "brown out".

What Intune’s technology does is use tunable lasers to virtualise the various streams of light that travel down fibre optic cables in such a way that by assigning colours and identities to each wavelength several telecoms companies can be serving thousands of businesses and consumers with high-speed telecoms, television, high-definition console gaming and a myriad of other services simultaneously.

According to Dunne, this has the capacity to significantly reduce the economies of scale required to invest in next-generation networks. In July, the Government committed a further €5m to the next two phases of the Exemplar Network being built by Intune to provide a testbed for global carriers and technology firms who want to test future applications as well as build future networks affordably. This will see the Exemplar Network grow from circling Dublin in the second phase to being a nationwide entity by the third phase in 2013.
...

The end of latency?

“We don’t play in the access network space, what people typically consider broadband signals; we are one mile back,” said Dunne who began Intune with John Farrell in 1999 after the pair studied photonics at UCD.

“We are the second mile in; what we’ve done is allow electronic packet streams to be separately managed using different wavelengths. This is different from existing switches, where the different streams are switching inside the switch fabric and it is difficult to manage which flow gets priority.

“What Intune has done is from second mile in use optical switching and separate by wavelengths the different flows. In effect this takes the switching function which for the last 25 years done was done electronically and push this into optical layer

“The result of this is you can manage the quality of service and delay and latency in a much more controlled way, pre-engineering the performance you want into network before you bill for it.”

The other result is potentially multiple telecoms operators operating ultra high-speed services across hundreds of thousands of homes and business on a few strands of fibre.

And so last night in Dingle on the western edge of Europe, as the lights went down on the strains of Cocker and co’s music, light bulbs were already flashing in the minds of future carriers who are now willing and able to deliver the future.

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Finding The “Holy Grail” Of Networking - The Wall Street Journal

2010-11-29T09:15:00.000-08:00

There are two words hideously over-used in the tech start-up world: “revolutionary” and “disruptive”. However, it is hard to think of other words to use about Intune Networks, an Irish high-tech start up that has technology that could catapult fibre efficiency from a few per cent up to the mid 80s.

I spoke to their CEO, Tim Friztley, in Dublin. Mr. Friztley is a grey-beard veteran of many years in the networking world including GTE, Tellabs, and most recently VP of Global Sales and Solutions at Microsoft TV. What decades of experience gives Mr. Friztley is the insight to know when a true-game changer has come along.

“I had a friend doing some work for me in Dublin and one day he gives me a call. He said ‘Look here Tim, these two PhD guys, John Dunne and Tom Farrell, these guys have invented an optical burst packet switch. And I broke out laughing. ‘If someone had invented that I would know about it by now’.

“This has been the holy grail of networking. The biggest labs in the world have been working on this problem. So I kind of scoffed at the fact that two kids in Dublin had a working optical burst packet switch.”

To cut a long story short: eight years and €49 million in funding later, that is exactly what they have done.

Shifting intelligence to the edge

The problem with networks today is that intelligence is at the centre, not the edge. So if you send an email from your address to your neighbour, the data is brought into the centre where it is sorted and then sent out again. It is a bit like sending a postcard from Cork airport to University College, Cork, and having it go via Dublin.

This is slow and it means local fibre loops have very little traffic flowing over them, while the central hubs are stuffed up.

“The best utilisation they [operators] get from their switches and fibre is 20%. Most cases its 5%, in many it is less than 1%,” says Mr. Friztley.

That means all that digging up the road, and all that expensive switching gear is sitting around doing practically nothing.

No sending data to the centre

How does Intune solve the problem? Put the smarts out on the edge. The heart of Intune’s system is a tuneable laser that can switch between one of 160 colours in nanoseconds.

Imagine a fibre loop with a series of nodes. Each node is assigned a colour and each is listening out for its colour. Along comes a packet. The system looks at the packet’s destination — let’s say it maps to the blue node — so the laser switches to blue and fires out the data. The next packet arrives nanoseconds later, it maps to the green node, the laser switches in nanoseconds and fires out that data. And so on.

In the loop, the nodes can pass on data on every other colour, but will “pluck out” the data on their own colour. So in our example above, the blue node picks up the data aimed at it, and delivers it, but simply passes through untouched the next packet on green, which the green node picks up and delivers.

This way data can be delivered locally without having to haul it all the way back to the centre, just to be sent back to edge, dramatically improving latency and the utilisation of the existing fibre.

Works with any tuneable laser

The secret sauce, that Mr. Dunne and Mr. Farrell discovered, was how to turn any available tuneable laser into an optical burst switch. Lasers are based on crystals. Apply a tiny charge and you get a laser. But each crystal is unique so each behaves very slightly differently. What everyone else had been trying to do was to grow new types of crystals. What Mr. Dunne and Mr. Farrell did was work with the existing tuneable laser companies to develop a new control system for nanosecond control of these tuneable laser being developed by many companies.

“What John and Tom figured out was that they could characterise that laser by imaging it through digital signal processing. Based upon that image they could develop a control algorithm and guarantee that that signal would hop to the centre of that colour every time over a 15 year life cycle,” said Mr. Friztley.

Intune is currently in trials at the moment with a major U.S. carrier, but Mr. Friztley was confident the system would easily meet their requirements and is on track to ship in Q1 of 2011.

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Intune targets IPO to be Ireland's anchor tech firm - Irish Times

2010-11-26T01:20:00.000-08:00

One of Ireland’s hottest visual content delivery start-ups reveals its exit strategy. IAN CAMPBELL reports

INTUNE NETWORKS will be sold or go for an initial public offering (IPO) within three years, according to company chief executive Tim Fritzley.

He outlined his plan as the firm prepares to enter the commercial marketplace following what Fritzley describes as “one of the world’s most complex telecom development projects”.

Coming from the US with a CV that includes a stint heading up Microsoft’s internet protocol television (IPTV) business, Fritzley is well-acquainted with telecoms providers and is bullish enough to namecheck potential buyers.

“Cisco buys mature technologies so that is one exit strategy. But Ericsson, Alcatel, and all the other companies need to refresh their portfolios. They are about five to six years away from next-generation technology and need to buy it.”

Back in 2006, when Fritzley first pitched venture capitalists to fund Intune, he told them the telecoms industry was cyclical and they would see a healthy return on their investment.

“That was the bet I made. I told them at a point in time, when the pendulum swings back, we’ll have a product ready to go and somebody will buy us.”

He said the company mindset is focused on an IPO in 2012 or 2013, but investors may favour a sale if the right offer comes along.

“From a personal standpoint, the executives and founders would like to see an IPO. Ireland doesn’t have an anchor technology company and InTune could be it.”

Founded in 1999 by two UCD graduates, John Dunne and Tom Farrell, Intune Networks has developed advanced optical networking products that give carriers and internet service providers the capacity to meet growing demands for bandwidth. An explosion in video content and emerging models for cloud-based services have put a strain on networks that is only likely to get worse.

Bottlenecks will be alleviated by what Fritzley calls the “holy grail of networking”. For 30 years, laboratories and universities had identified optical packet switching technology as the way forward but it took Dunne and Farrell to come up with a clever piece of IP that made it commercial and scalable.

In 2006, Fritzley joined as chief executive and calculated that the company would need five years and €70 million to commercialise its products. Early investors were found in Britain and the US, as their Irish counterparts opted for property over technology.

“A well-known Irish investor laughed at me,” recalls Fritzley. “He said he could go across the street and buy a €5 million lot and turn it around for €30 million the next week.”

Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland did come on board.

An R&D division run out of Belfast has been crucial in bringing the products to market, drawing on 20 years of telecoms experience in the region. Nortel and then Flextronics had built up an RD capability, some of which has now passed to InTune. Just as well, because Fritzley was close to going to the US for the skills after being unable to find what he needed in the South.

“Eighteen months ago, we wanted to move forward with the commercialisation, which is incredibly expensive and complex because big carriers have very specific requirements. In Dublin, there isn’t a culture of developing this type of equipment, but we found it in Belfast,” he said.

The upshot is that Intune now promotes itself to the world as an all-Ireland company. In the South, its ties go even deeper with the Government having invested €10 million in funding the build of the Exemplar Network using Intune technology.

“In September 2008, they came to me and asked how they could keep the technology in Ireland and build an ecosystem around it,” said Fritzley. “They came up with the idea of an open facility that could generate jobs and inward investment into Ireland around next-generation network technology.”

More than 30 companies and institutions have signed up to use the testbed, including BT, Imagine, EMC, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway, UCD and DCU.

If Intune sells up, investors may get a good return but what happens to the Government’s ambitions to create a core competency? Fritzley says that if there is a solid technology core that employs 200-250 people, a company like Cisco would leave it where it was. InTune currently employs about 135 people but expects to grow further.

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“POTN will solve challenge of growing traffic on networks” – Intune Networks

2010-11-11T02:20:00.000-08:00

INTUNE NETWORKS FOUNDER ADDRESSES PACKET-OPTICAL TRANSPORT NETWORKING EVENT

Berlin, 18 November 2010 – John Dunne, Founder and CTO of Intune Networks, led an expert panel discussion this week at the Packet-Optical Transport Networking Event held in Berlin, Germany. In his session, John outlined the potential for Packet-Optical Transport Networking to solve the issues facing network operators as they cope with growing traffic demand and look for ways to bridge the gap between today’s network infrastructure and tomorrow’s business needs.

John discussed how the challenge facing network operators is in finding ways to evolve their network architectures to cope with the massive increase in unpredictable traffic demand while sustaining profitability and controlling costs. Intune Networks offers operators an innovative approach to solving this problem through its breakthrough technology named Optical Packet Switch and Transport.

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Intune Networks meets HRH Queen Elizabeth at Hillsborough Castle

2010-10-30T02:40:00.000-07:00

Belfast, October 2010 – Intune Networks were among a small group of business leaders who were invited to meet HRH Queen Elizabeth at Hillsborough Castle for a reception celebrating business excellence. The dinner reception was held during the Queen’s official October visit to Northern Ireland and was hosted by Invest Northern Ireland. Intune Networks were honoured by being included in a small group that shared a table with the Queen during the event.

Jayne Brady, Head of Intune Networks Belfast said, ‘We are very proud to have been selected to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at such a prestigious event and to have been afforded an opportunity to share our business experiences with her. It was an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of economic growth, development opportunities and facilitating the right business structures which will help companies thrive in Northern Ireland.

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Mobile data traffic forecast to grow tenfold in five years... - Silicon Republic

2010-10-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

In defining his vision of the future of the network at the Broadband World Forum in Paris today, the co-founder of Irish technology firm Intune Networks said mobile packet traffic is set to grow by a factor of 10 in less than five years.

The company’s co-founder, John Dunne, outlined a 10-year transition from today’s centralised, static and complex networks to networks that will be distributed, dynamic and simple.

Mobile packet traffic, he said, is forecasted to grow by a factor of 10 in less than five years, with video consuming more than 50pc of projected new bandwidth growth.

Normal growth challenges have been exacerbated by the recent proliferation of high-powered mobile devices, such as smartphones and netbooks, which produce increasingly unpredictable data traffic patterns.

This mobile growth is in addition to the doubling of packet-based traffic every 18 months based on current and ever-increasing new web and internet services.

The problem facing networks is how to evolve network architectures to cope with the massive increase in unpredictable traffic demand while sustaining profitability and controlling costs. Intune Networks has achieved this through its breakthrough technology named Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) and the Intune Network’s iVX8000 platform will deliver this solution.

Global economic transition based on web services
Dunne said: “We are at the beginning of a global economic transition based on web services. The current network and network technologies will all fail to be able to meet the future economic drivers.

“Central to solving this problem will be a unified network for all services that can dynamically adapt to demand, whilst operating at the lowest cost. Intune Network’s Verisma, the world’s first web-enabled tunable network solution, empowers service providers to fundamentally change the economics that challenge business survival, and provide a foundation for future prosperity.

“Intune Networks will deliver solutions based on Optical Packet Switch and Transport technology that enable users to realise the potential of their assets through virtualising the network. Customers will achieve new levels of network efficiency, operational simplicity and service delivery agility.

“Solutions from Intune Networks will unlock the possibilities in networks, delivering a step-change in the level of real-time network customisation, architectural simplicity and reduced operational costs that will enable a sea change in the value of their networks and services,” he said.

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Intune CTO to Present at BBWF 2010...

2010-10-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks's CTO, John Dunne will discuss how Intune's patented Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) platform can virtualise the network.

Intune’s OPST platform is uniquely capable of delivering fluid network connectivity and capacity to meet nomadic services in a deterministic manner, whilst delivering a virtualised fully meshed network which supports multiple network services on a single infrastructure. Additionally, service delivery is under user control and is scalable and usage based by design with the web enabling the scalability of the architecture. Intune’s solution significantly lowers total cost of ownership (TCO), while allowing for the rapid deployment of revenue generating Web services that require high quality, on-demand network access.

Event Schedule

Packet optical transport: Hollowing the network core... - Gazettabyte

2010-10-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Roy Rubenstein, editor of Gazettabyte, interviews Intune Network's CEO, Tim Fritzley and CTO John Dunne on how Intune's Optical Packet Switch and Transport Technology can hollow out the core.

Intune Networks has developed an optical packet switching and transport (OPST) system that effectively turns fibre into a distributed switching fabric.

The platform enables a fully-meshed metropolitan networkIntune Networks' CEO, Tim Fritzley (right) and John Dunne, co-founder and CTO with software support for web-based services, claims the Irish start-up.

“What we have designed allows for the sharing of the same fibre switching assets across multiple services in the metro,” says Tim Fritzley, Intune’s CEO.

The company is in talks with several operators about its OPST system, which is being used for a nationwide network in Ireland. The system is also part of an EC seventh framework project that includes Spanish operator Telefónica...

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Intune Top EC Success Story...

2010-10-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks attended the European Commission’s ICT 2010 conference in Brussels this September. Intune had a stand at the conference and presented the Exemplar Network in the Future Internet – a transformational Technology workshop. The conference was attended by over fifty-five thousand of Europe’s top ICT experts from industry and academia.

Fergal Ward (Exemplar Program Manager at Intune Networks), speaking to European commissioners, said “Intune are delighted to be nominated as one the EC’s top success stories. The ICT strand is a very competitive program with 1000’s of pioneering projects and for Intune to be nominated as one of the EC’s key successes is tremendous for Intune and a testament to the teams in Dublin and Belfast. Intune have worked in many EC projects since its inception in 1999 and have enjoyed building core Verisma technologies with European partners and lead customers. Our most recent project is called MAINS which studies the substantial benefits of optical burst switching architectures in next-generation networks. Intune have had many very positive experiences working in the EC’s framework program and look forward to participating in many more projects in years to come.”

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Intune Networks meets President Clinton...

2010-09-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Intune showcased as an example of successful entrepreneurship

Intune Networks, was the only non-US company selected to meet 42nd US President W J Clinton at a small private meeting of business leaders in Derry. In a wide ranging discussion on how to strengthen the NI economy and attract future investment, Intune Networks was represented by Chairman, Ian Jenks.

Intune outlined the benefits and opportunities that can be realised by companies who invest in the region to President Clinton. Intune was showcased as an example of the growth that can be enjoyed by innovative, start up companies working in the Knowledge Economy on the island of Ireland. In particular, the company highlighted the opportunity for entrepreneurial, high tech, green organisations in Northern Ireland and cited the availability of highly skilled workers as well as the support of the agencies such as Invest NI as being instrumental in its growth and success...

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Intune Verisma iVX8000 Launched..

2010-07-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Mobile packet traffic is forecasted to grow by a factor of ten in less than five years with video consuming more than 50% of projected new bandwidth growth. Normal growth challenges have been exacerbated by the recent proliferation of high powered mobile devices such as smart phones and netbooks which produce increasingly unpredictable data traffic patterns. This mobile growth is in addition to the doubling of packet based traffic every 18 months based on current and ever increasing new Web and Internet services.

Download iVX8000 Datasheet

Verisma solves this on-demand, unpredictable packet traffic problem. The unveiling of the product this year follows a 10 year journey of 10,000 hours of development and dedication by John Dunne and Tom Farrell who founded Intune Networks in Dublin in 1999. Both UCD graduates, they were researching tuneable laser technology in European funded programmes. Over the next 11 years, Intune developed and refined its technology and today is focussed on the telecoms equipment market where the next generation of digital service requirements such as quality of experience and high on-demand bandwidths are creating a new global opportunity which Verisma meets. Intune currently employs 120 people and has design centres in Dublin and Belfast.

Early versions of the products are already on trial with several large European operators having validated the core technology performance over the past 2 years...

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Intune Networks - Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) Demo...

2010-07-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

Source

Government's 'exemplar' hits right notes with InTune investor - Irish Times

2010-07-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

Todd Dagres, one of the most highly ranked VCs in the US, launched a successful VC career with a $12 million investment in dotcom-era media content delivery company Akamai, which went on to make several hundred million for then-employer Battery Ventures.

After a successful decade at VC firm Battery Ventures, he co-founded Spark Capital to hone in on his entertainment and internet interests. Current investments include Twitter, Covestor, Kateeva, Menara Networks, Verivue and Irish laser networking company InTune Networks.

InTune Networks is a cornerstone of the Irish Government’s “exemplar” (showcase) network and a company that Ministers have touted as potentially an “Irish Nokia” with the promise of employing thousands.

Visiting Dublin last week for an InTune board meeting, Dagres gives a short laugh at the “Nokia” tag. InTune has “very disruptive technology – it really is a generational leap” several years ahead of its competitors, he says.

The company “has a chance to be a very meaningful company” and of considerably increasing the number of well-paid employees in Ireland, but he thinks in terms of hundreds, perhaps, not thousands.

He adds: “How long did it take for Nokia to get to be the size it is now?”

But he liked what he saw in InTune even at an early stage. Rare for VCs, Spark took a stake in InTune when it was in development mode, still three years off when it expected to have a product. Now as that point approaches, Dagres is hoping the company will win customers.

While, like most VCs, he doesn’t care much for government interventions into the entrepreneurial process, he has high praise for the Irish initiative to create its exemplar network. Such a network is attractive for companies like InTune because it enables them to test products and services live rather than in a lab.

“I like governments to get out of the way, but in this case I think the Government has done something that’s smart. Without Government support it would have been hard to build something like this in Ireland.

“The exemplar really puts Ireland on the map in terms of innovation and networking because no one else has anything like this,” he says. “Not too many places have the hardware, software and optical capabilities to do something like this.”

He says having the network and companies like InTune using it means added jobs and, more important, new national expertise.

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RACE FOR FIBRE LEADERSHIP - Digital21.ie

2010-07-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

IRELAND’S EXEMPLAR NETWORK COULD GIVE US EDGE.
Data usage on the web, mainly video, is exploding and traditional networks won’t be able to keep up.

The nations that will attract the most foreign direct investment and that will give their homegrown businesses the best fighting chance in the decades ahead will be the ones with the most sophisticated and powerful fibre networks.

Projected increase in global internet traffic

According to the most recent study on the subject by Cisco, demand for 3D TV and HDTV via the internet will see global internet traffic increase fourfold to 767 exabytes by 2014 - 10 times all the traffic traversing IP networks in 2008. Video alone will exceed 91pc of global consumer IP traffic by 2014.

Google's plans in the US to experiment with 1Gbps fibre in a select number of communities have been met with 200,000 responses from individuals, indicating the value people are beginning to attach to these networks.

It was no small coincidence that many of the folk who had gathered to witness the switching on of Ireland's Exemplar Network in a business park in west Dublin were a mixture of scientific and cultural types who see fibre as critical to the country's industrial and creative future.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan last week committed a further € 5m to the next two phases of the Exemplar Network, which will see it grow from circling Dublin in the second phase to being a nationwide entity by the third phase in 2013.

Ryan said the first phase of the Exemplar Network, in which the State invested €10m with Intune Networks, has already created 140 jobs and by the third phase thousands of jobs, from digital media to high-end computing, green tech and life sciences, could be created as organisations will be attracted by the speed and capability of the network.

The first phase of the Exemplar Network, the Exemplar Testbed, located at Intune's headquarters in Park West in Dublin, has a capacity for 2.5 terabytes - remarkable when you consider that this is twice the volume of traffic that the current London phone system carries.

The work of Intune Networks

Intune Networks, formed in 1999 by a group of ex-UCD photonics researchers, has developed a technology that can enable a single strand of fibre to move from carrying one signal from one operator to carrying data from 80 telecoms and TV companies all at once.

The managing director of EMC in Ireland, Bob Savage, explained that multinationals based here have to compete globally to win investment. EMC and subsidiary VMware employ more than 1,700 people in Cork.

"This is a tangible example of how Ireland is innovating. We are entering the world of cloud computing and scalable, robust networks will be key. As an organisation we will be looking to leverage the Exemplar Network in the months and years ahead."

Pol Mac Aonghusa, chief technology officer in charge of strategy, development and innovation at IBM, which employs 3,000-plus people in Dublin, said the Smart Cities project in Dublin, which is creating 200 jobs, has the potential to create up to 700 positions based on creating the energy, living and traffic-management solutions for future cities.

"The key to what we're looking at is using cloud computing and distributing rich content and meaningful services at a scale entire cities will consume.

"Collaboration is part of our DNA and we will be bringing research to the world from behind the firewall and we'll definitely be using the Exemplar Network," said Mac Aonghusa.

Fibre networks in Ireland

Two other key international fibre networks have been converging on Ireland: first the €30m Project Kelvin transatlantic fibre network built by Hibernia Atlantic that comes ashore at Portrush and connects Ireland with North America; and second a €15m fibre network being built by Celtix Connect that will link Dublin's East Point with Holyhead and beyond into London's financial districts and Europe.

"The advantage of the Exemplar initiative is the low latency that internet providers will gain and this will be key to investment," explained Diane Hodnett, director of Celtix Connect.

"To see the Government take the initiative shows the seriousness of Ireland becoming a digital economy."

Last December, in a little Dingle church, rock band Snow Patrol gave an intimate performance that was transmitted via a fibre ring using the Exemplar technology to multiple HD screens, iPhones and laptops in the adjoining village.

The promoter of 'Other Voices', Philip King, explained: "This technology will be necessary for Ireland to be considerable in the world. Operating in the cultural space makes us considerable. People take us seriously because we are the best in the world at this and Irish music has always collided with technology, especially when you consider Irish music being recorded in America for the first time more than a century ago."

King said the dividends for the arts world from investment in the Exemplar can be several. "It's about our self worth and our ability to take on the best. If we can find a way of joining the brains, the genius and the know-how to technology, arts and the cultural sector we could create something unique in terms of tradition, translation and transmission."

The Arts Exemplar Network

Patrick Sutton of the Gaiety School of Acting is the driving force behind the creation of an Arts Exemplar Network and the refurbishment of the Smock Alley Theatre that was first established in Ireland 348 years ago and which will reopen next March.

"There's a heartbeat and real-life aspect to this because people are key to developing content," Sutton said. "This is significant for the story Ireland has to tell and significant for the world.

"The thousands of new jobs are certain, but people must realise that generating content for their channel, generating that content and ensuring people can see it and maximise it is key. When people realise that generating content for their channel, the primary school, the football club or so Smock Alley can use it and access it is extraordinarily exciting."

The CEO of Intune Networks, Tim Fritzley explained: "There is a unique opportunity for the island of Ireland. When you look at what's happening with Celtix Connect going across to the UK and Project Kelvin going to the US, the Exemplar is what's going to connect all of that together. In terms of the content distribution and creation, it comes together in a unique way that no one else in the world will have.

"What's interesting is we just had a large European telecoms carrier in and they told us that 95pc of their traffic is video based and of that 90pc of that should be within a region, but today because of way it is operating users go all the way to the US and back again to watch a single video.

"The reason for that is the current networks in regions aren't set up to handle how video and web services are being accessed through mobile or fixed broadband. You'll need Exemplar technology to handle that as you go forward," Fritzley explained.

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Intune's Exemplar Network and The Future of the Internet...

2010-07-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Exemplar Network...

The Future of the Internet...

State invests €5m as innovative Irish research heralds 'future of internet' - Irish Times

2010-07-16T03:43:00.000-07:00

MINISTER FOR Communications Eamon Ryan yesterday unveiled a €5 million investment in internet technology developed in Ireland that will bring 140 new high-end research jobs in the next year.

In a world’s first, the technology uses tuneable lasers instead of silicon chips to deliver data and will enable high-definition streaming of sports and movies to home computers and mobile phones.

It is the second phase of Government investment in the Exemplar programme, which solves the problem giants like ATT have been addressing for the last 10 years – congestion on the internet .

Developed by two UCD graduates at Intune Networks, it has the potential to carry the equivalent of London’s entire telephone network from just one small computer room in Dublin.

“This is a breakthrough moment for Ireland,” said Mr Ryan. “The future of the internet is here and it’s being developed in Ireland.”

He hopes it will act as a magnet for investment. More than 30 telecoms companies have already signed up to test the technology, including BT, Imagine and IBM.

One of the first companies planning to pilot the system for the public is Smock Alley Theatre, a 17th-century theatre in Temple Bar which will open again in March next year with international stars including Liam Neeson and Robert de Niro to perform.

Such is the incredible speed with which data can be transferred that that one of the creators of the technology, Tom Dunne, believes consumers will in future be able to run their own TV channels.

“Take social networking. People will be able to broadcast their own events to their friends and family,” he said.

It also unleashes the prospect of pay-as-you-go broadband rates and high-quality streaming of sports and movies onto phones.

“The opportunities are endless. we can see uses for teachers, social workers, businesses and the great thing is you will be able to decide exactly what quality broadband you want and for how long for and pay for just that. No more flat rates,” said Mr Dunne.

Exemplar works by solving the problem of costly bottlenecks caused by congestion at switches in the telephone network. The average internet connection involves 20 switches from home computer to host computer.

The first live network was switched on by Mr Ryan yesterday at Parkwest Business Centre in west Dublin and a full-scale ring around Dublin will be built for further testing in 2011 with a view to rolling out a national test bed in 2012.

The technology, which is locked down with 16 patents, is being made available to any company worldwide for trial purposes. Normally companies developing technology do it in private and use it to leverage competitive advantage.

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Exemplar Network Launch - RTE 6 ONE News

2010-07-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

(Clip from RTE 6 ONE News)

Ireland’s next big thing - the Exemplar Network - Silicon Republic

2010-07-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Video

Exactly a year on, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan TD has committed a further €5m to the next two phases of the Exemplar Network which will see the Exemplar Network grow from circling Dublin in the second phase to being a nationwide entity by the third phase in 2013.

Ryan said the first phase of the Exemplar Network, in which the State invested €10m with Intune Networks, has already created 140 jobs and that by the time of the third phase thousands of jobs, from digital media to high-end computing, green tech and life sciences, could be created as organisations will be attracted by the speed and capability of the network.

The first phase of the Exemplar Network, the Exemplar Testbed, located at Intune’s headquarters in Park West in Dublin, has a capacity of 2.5 terabytes – remarkable when you consider that this is twice the volume of traffic that the current London phone system carries.

The network heralds an era of virtualisation of fibre networks, using colour coding to enable multiple fibre providers to serve businesses and homes, often on a single strand of fibre. Intune Networks, formed in 1999 by a group of ex-UCD photonics researchers, has developed a technology that can enable a single strand of fibre to move from carrying one signal from one operator to carrying data from 80 telecoms and TV companies all at once.

Organisations drawn to Exemplar Network
Today, it emerged that already 30 international companies and research bodies have expressed an interest in testing new products on the network, including BT, Imagine, EMC, Celtix Connect, IBM, ESB Telecom, Opennet, Firecomms, DCU, UCD, NUI Galway, UCC Tyndall and Science Foundation Ireland.

The second phase of the Exemplar Network, which kicks off in 2011, will consist of an active test ring around the Dublin metropolitan area. Organisations will be able to deploy their products to the market and test them in real-life scenarios. This will particularly involve major universities and research groups from the global and local technology and telecoms industries.

The final layer of the network, Phase 3, will kick off in 2013 and will be complete by 2020. This will exist as a national network for R&D or could also be used as a next-generation optical network that would be open to all carriers.

“The Exemplar Network will represent a quantum leap in the handling of data,” Ryan said this morning. “The price of data traffic will be coming down while speeds increase, so we need a quantum leap to overcome bottlenecks.”

Ryan said the potential of the technology to be severely disruptive is guaranteed and of global consequence. “Remember, this was a technology designed in Dublin, built in Cork and is an appropriate leap forward for the global internet, providing open access that is local to everyone.

“There is huge potential in creating jobs through a technology that we developed here in this city, and companies and research bodies will come here to test and develop on it. The reason why we made this investment was to give real confidence and point out that we have this capability and we have skills that are world class.

“This is also a green technology – it is capable of carrying twice the volume of traffic that London phone systems carry.

“We stand on the cusp of creating a high quality, world-leading infrastructure that could create thousands of new jobs,” Ryan said.

Venture capital investment raised by Intune
Intune has in the past year raised more than €25m in venture capital investment, including a €22m round led by Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital, as well as recently a €3m round led by Novusmodus. Intune co-founder John Dunne told Siliconrepublic that the company now has 33 patents.

The company recently expanded into the US, with the opening of a Boston office and was awarded a major EU contract as part of a consortium involving telecom players Telefónica and PrimeTel under the EU 7th Framework.

Exactly a year ago, Ryan, at the publication of six-point action plan for the smart economy, contracted Intune to trial its technology here first before it hits mass manufacture. The solution – the Exemplar Network – could sort out the country’s broadband woes and catapult Ireland to the cutting edge of telecoms before anybody else. The move will grow Intune from 100 workers in Dublin and Belfast today to employing an additional 300 people over the next three years.

Intune CEO Tim Fritzley said he believes the Exemplar Network could help transform Ireland from a manufacturing and agricultural society to a high-end purveyor of ICT. “One of the biggest telecoms carriers in the world could come here and build a proprietary closed lab. But now, by having a facility like this Ireland could become an open place for the global carriers to base their labs. This will be a magnet for creating the jobs of the future.”

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€5m more for high-speed data network - RTE One News

2010-07-15T06:43:00.001-07:00

RTE ONE NEWS:

(Video)

RTE Radio ONE News:

A new Irish-developed technology will enable companies to transfer data and images in a way that is faster, more secure and of a higher quality.

That is according to the Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan, who launched a new fibre optic network this morning.

The Exemplar network aims to solve the problem of costly bottlenecks of data. The first phase of the network is now up and running in its test facility in Parkwest, Dublin. The technology involved was developed by Irish company Intune Networks.

The Government has already invested €5m in the network, and Minister Ryan said today he intended to provide another €5m, which would lead to 140 jobs.

More than 30 companies and institutions have signed up to use the Exemplar network to test their products and services and conduct research. The companies include BT, Imagine, EMC and IBM, while four universities - UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway, UCD and DCU - will also use the facility, as will Science Foundation Ireland.

Phase 2 of the project involves the construction of a test ring around the Dublin metropolitan area and will start next year. The final phase, beginning in 2013, will see the Exemplar as nationwide infrastructure.

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The Irish Government launches Exemplar Network...

2010-07-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

30 companies line up to use the high-speed, high-quality digital network 140 jobs to come from Phase I alone “The future of the internet is here” – Minister Ryan

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan today switched on the Government’s Exemplar Network. This is globally unique fibre-optic communications network using patented Irish technology which allows for the high-speed and high-quality transfer of electronic data.

Traffic on the internet is doubling every 2 years. The Exemplar Network solves the problem of costly bottlenecks of data, opening up a world of possibilities for future applications on the internet.

Last July the Government launched its ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy’ report. This ground-breaking report included 6 actions to help Ireland jump ahead of our competitors in the digital economy. One of the actions promised was the development of the Exemplar Network. Today, Phase I of the Exemplar is up and running in its test bed facility in Parkwest, Dublin.

The Government has already invested €5 million in the network. Today, Minister Ryan announced his intention to provide a further €5 million in additional investment.

Over 30 companies and institutions have signed up to use the Exemplar network to test their products and services and conduct research. These include: BT, Imagine, EMC, Celtix Connect, IBM, Smart Telecom, e|Net, Opennet, ESBTelecom and Firecomms. Four of Ireland’s universities UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway, UCD and DCU will use the facility, as will Science Foundation Ireland.

The Exemplar Network can be used to create virtual data centres and to facilitate cloud computing. High quality data and image transfer also allows for multi-site simultaneous broadcast of arts events. The Exemplar technology was used to broadcast a Snow Patrol concert in St. James’ Church in Dingle last year with a live, high definition stream to a number of locations. Many of the applications of this network are as yet unknown.

“The future of the internet is here”, said Minister Ryan, “and it’s being developed in Ireland”.

“There are those who believe Governments are not innovators, that we are technology takers, not leaders. Today, they would see gathered in one room leading international businesspeople, academics and artists. Everyone here today understands that this is a breakthrough moment for Ireland.

This Government identified cutting-edge technology with the potential to transform the internet. We invested in it and ensured it was available on an open access basis for all to use. Such is the interest from industry and the arts, today I can say that we are investing an additional €5 million in the Exemplar, which will create 140 jobs in the short term. The further phases of this project have the potential to create thousands more.

The new economy is digital, green and smart. The Exemplar network is all of these and with human ingenuity its future applications are endless”.

Phase II involves the construction of an active test ring around the Dublin metropolitan area and will commence next year. The final Phase beginning in 2013 will see the Exemplar as nationwide infrastructure.

Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks, the developers of the technology said: “The launch of the Test Bed marks a significant milestone in the Exemplar project and we are proud that the Test Bed has been built on Intune’s high performance optical packet switch and transport platform - Verisma.

“With the Test Bed complete the opportunity now exists for leading companies, academic institutions and arts based organisations, amongst others, to begin to develop on the network. This early test work will happen while phase one of the project continues with the Exemplar Network being built out in the Dublin region. The early commitment from an impressive range of leading organisations at this early stage of the project underscores the potential impact of the Exemplar Network.”

Brian O’Donoghue, Managing Director of Imagine Communications Group said, “WiMax and Exemplar can create a partnership to propel Ireland towards new job creation by inward investments and enable operators to set up world class businesses across Ireland. We are now witnessing Ireland’s transformation to the forefront of the digital technology revolution”.

Diane Hodnett, Managing Director of Celtix Connect said, “The future of the internet is about low latency, i.e. speed, driven by consumers requiring real time information, communicating in real time and using speed as a competitive advantage to conduct business. The environment and service providers who can deliver on this will be at the forefront of a truly digital economy. The deployment of the Exemplar network, coupled with the new CeltixConnect sub-sea cable, will deliver on this and will foster a massive growth in technology based industries and employment, be they content, media or financial, with Ireland as the hub. This is a ground-breaking development which must be applauded and driven by service providers and government alike to promote at home and abroad”.

Philip King, presenter of Other Voices said of the Snow Patrol streaming in Dingle, “The content delivery over the optical burst packet switched fibre network guaranteed uninterrupted premium quality content – something which was previously unachievable. The establishment of the Exemplar Network will allow Other Voices in 2010 to expand the delivery of high quality content directly to consumers outside of the Dingle area.”

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Smart Network to be Launched - Irish Examiner

2010-07-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

Smart network could create thousands of jobs, says Minister

A new Smart network, a technology for high speed communications, could create thousands of jobs, it was claimed today.

The Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan is due to announce details of testing the new technology this morning.

The Smart network would involve a single infrastructure for all digital communications.

Multinational and Irish IT and entertainment companies will be involved in the testing and subsequent roll-out of the network.

Eighty jobs will be created in the first phase, with thousands more coming on stream with the eventual roll-out across the country.

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Intune Networks gets €3m ESB Novusmodus investment...

2010-07-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

Energy fund ESB Novusmodus has invested €3 million in Dublin-based Intune Networks.

The company, which develops high-performance laser technology for the telecoms industry, recently raised €22 million in a funding round that will be used develop and commercialise its optical data switch technology.

Intune has developed a technology known as optical packet switch and transport (OPST), which allows more traffic to be sent over existing fibre-optic networks using different coloured lights and better utilises the network's capability.

The technology is expected to help solve traffic bottleneck issues for telecoms carriers, and also uses less energy, meaning it has a lower carbon footprint than other internet technologies.

“Intune Networks’ revolutionary technology has the potential to transform the way that carriers operate their metro networks, solving bandwidth problems at the same time as halving their energy consumption," said Novusmodus’ John McKiernan.

Intune is currently involved in building the platform for the Government’s €5 million Exemplar Network, which will be used as a test bed that will allow companies to trial high speed network applications.

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Govt’s newest fibre broadband network involves 64 patents

2010-04-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

A new high-speed fibre broadband network owned entirely by the Irish Government involves the ingenuity of a number of Irish-based companies and includes 64 revolutionary patents that will define future communications.

The Exemplar Test Bed, forged as part of a partnership between the Government and Intune networks involving a €5m investment and 80 new jobs, will utilise the technology invented in Ireland.

Intune’s technology – Optical Packet Switch and Transport – could potentially replace the thousands of silicon computer chips used in internet switches today. Essentially, they have invented a network for the high-speed, low-energy, high-quality transfer of data.

This technology can eliminate costly bottlenecks of data on networks. The dramatic reductions in the amount of energy they use make this technology an attractive prospect for major international companies.

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD announced that the Government would invest €5 million in Phase I of this project. The aim is that companies will use the test bed for Research and Development purposes.

Already, companies such as Eircom, EMC, Imagine, BT, IBM, ESB Telecom, E-Net, Firecomms, Openet and CeltixConnect have entered into discussions with the Department. UCD, DCU, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway and Science Foundation Ireland have also expressed an interest in using this technology for their research purposes.

The test bed has 64 granted patents which secure the technology and which ensure that Ireland is the first country in the world to offer such a facility. The test bed is 100pc owned by the Government.

The test bed will be built in Parkwest Business Park in Dublin and will be open for business, on an open-access basis, in July of this year. Eighty jobs will be created directly in Phase I.

“Today we are investing in the new economy,” Ryan said. “This technology was invented in Irish universities and developed by an Irish company. It has the potential to revolutionise the internet, transferring data faster and in higher quality than previous technology.

“Their invention also vastly reduces the associated energy costs. It represents a very exciting prospect to test the applications and services of the future internet.

“Our partnership with Intune is unique. Government is making the initial investment, will own the test bed and will ensure it is operated on an open access basis, so that companies and universities can use the network for their own research and development.

“Last year, we launched our strategy for the development of the digital economy in Ireland. Less than a year later we will be up and running with a revolutionary new network that will position Ireland as an international test bed for high-tech, low-energy technology,” Ryan said.

“We are investing in ourselves, in our own ingenuity. We are betting on ourselves and in so doing helping to create the technology and jobs of tomorrow,” Ryan said.

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Start-ups gaining from technology recovery - Irish Times

2010-04-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks, the maker of telecoms equipment for high-bandwidth transmission, enjoyed one of the largest increases in its score on the index, rising from 63 last December to 72 this week. That score does not include yesterday’s announcement that a number of telecoms firms are seeking to carry out tests of its Government-backed Exemplar Network.

Intune reached several milestones in the past few months. It is part of an EU consortium, including Telefónica, which is researching the design of a telecoms network for cloud computing.

Irish Times Tech Top 50
Current score and Dec. 2009 score
Newbay 83 (81)
Globoforce 75 (74)
Openmind Networks 73 (NA)
Intune Networks 72 (63)
CarTrawler 66 (61)
Realex Payments 65 (64)
eRepublik 64 (58)
Equiendo 63 (63)
Ammado 62 (68)
....

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Communications network to create 80 jobs - RTE News

2010-04-25T03:17:00.000-07:00

80 jobs are to be created by the developers of a high-speed, low-energy communications network.

The exemplar communications test bed is being developed by Dublin-based firm Intune Networks and supported by a €5m investment by the Government.

The aim is to ensure high-quality data can be transferred quickly without generating big energy bills.

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Intune Networks Welcomes Government Announcement on Commencement of Exemplar Network Build-Out

2010-04-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks, the Dublin based telecoms equipment supplier, today warmly welcomed the fact that the building of the Exemplar Network is due to commence. Final contracts for the deployment of the Network were signed at a press conference with Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan today at Government Buildings.

Intune Networks unique technology was chosen by the Government last July as a key component for the development and roll out of the network in Ireland. The first phase of the development of the Network will see the establishment of a Control Network Facility in Parkwest, Dublin, with the rollout of the first phase of the Operational Network to follow later in the year.

Commenting at the press conference where the contracts for the Exemplar Network were signed Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks said: “I congratulate the Government on its vision in seeking to build the World’s first web programmable network. The Exemplar Network will be a key piece of infrastructure in the development of the Smart Economy and will help Ireland to regain its competitive advantage.

“This network will act as a magnet to innovative and creative people all across the world helping to ensure that increasing amounts of IP and product development will happen here in Ireland. The Exemplar Network has the capacity to be the catalyst for economic growth in Ireland and we are delighted to be part of this exciting project which will help to foster hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, through the development of an indigenous ecosystem of companies, who will use it as a platform for developing and testing new applications as well as attracting international investment.”

Intune Networks has developed the world’s first programmable fibre optical packet switching platform which is critical to building an Exemplar Smart Network. Developing this technology has the potential to position Ireland for a wave of opportunities based on the future of the Internet that up to now have been considered an area of expertise of regions like Silicon Valley in the US and several Far Eastern countries who are pushing the boundaries of consumer broadband networks. The network will be the first step in creating a next generation smart and green communications infrastructure for Ireland.

John Dunne, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Intune Networks noted: “We are very excited about commencing the work on this critical project to ensure we can play our part in helping to deliver this strategy. We have spent the past ten years developing the technology to address the challenge presented by growing traffic on the internet. Our technology uses up to 75% less energy than today’s networks which are dominated by electronics. This green and smart network will enable new consumer, business and mobile data services to be delivered with 50% less cost and with major advancement in the quality of experience for end users.”

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Press Release - Ireland to build revolutionary high-speed telecoms network - DCENR

2010-04-24T01:10:00.000-07:00

€5 million investment by Government in Irish technology 80 jobs to be directly created in Phase I

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan today announced a partnership with Intune Networks to establish the first exemplar communications test bed.

The Exemplar Test Bed will utilise the technology invented in Ireland by two graduate students from UCD and developed by Irish company Intune Networks.

The company has invented a technology – Optical Packet Switch and Transport – which could potentially replace the thousands of silicon computer chips used in internet switches today. Essentially, they have invented a network for the high-speed, low-energy, high-quality transfer of data.

This technology can eliminate costly bottlenecks of data on networks. The dramatic reductions in the amount of energy they use make this technology an attractive prospect for major international companies.

Today, the Minister announced that the Government would invest €5 million in Phase I of this project. The aim is that companies will use the test bed for Research and Development purposes. Already, companies such as Eircom, EMC, Imagine, BT, IBM, ESB Telecom, Imagine, e-Net, Firecomms, Opennet and CeltixConnect have entered into discussions with the Department.

UCD, DCU, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway and Science Foundation Ireland have also expressed an interest in using this technology for their research purposes.

The test-bed has 64 granted patents which secure the technology and which ensure that Ireland is the first country in the world to offer such a facility. The test-bed is 100% owned by the Government.

The Test-bed will be build in Parkwest Business Park in Dublin and will be open for business, on an open-access basis, in July of this year. 80 jobs will be created directly in Phase I.

Announcing the initiative the Minister said, “Today we are investing in the new economy. This technology was invented in Irish universities and developed by an Irish company. It has the potential to revolutionise the internet, transferring data faster and in higher quality than previous technology. Their invention also vastly reduces the associated energy costs. It represents a very exciting prospect to test the applications and services of the future internet.

Our partnership with Intune is unique. Government is making the initial investment, will own the test-bed and will ensure it is operated on an open access basis, so that companies and universities can use the network for their own research and development.

Last year, we launched our strategy for the development of the digital economy in Ireland. Less than a year later we will be up and running with a revolutionary new network that will position Ireland as an international test bed for high-tech, low-energy technology.

We are investing in ourselves, in our own ingenuity. We are betting on ourselves and in so doing helping to create the technology and jobs of tomorrow.”

Read More

Intune Develops Fiber Optical Platform to Support Development of Exemplar Network in Ireland

2010-04-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

Final contracts for the deployment of the Network were signed at a press conference with Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan today at Government Buildings.

Intune Networks unique technology was chosen by the Government last July as a key component for the development and roll out of the network in Ireland. The first phase of the development of the Network will see the establishment of a Control Network Facility in Parkwest, Dublin, with the rollout of the first phase of the Operational Network to follow later in the year.

Commenting at the press conference where the contracts for the Exemplar Network were signed Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks said: “I congratulate the Government on its vision in seeking to build the World’s first web programmable network. The Exemplar Network will be a key piece of infrastructure in the development of the Smart Economy and will help Ireland to regain its competitive advantage.

“This network will act as a magnet to innovative and creative people all across the world helping to ensure that increasing amounts of IP and product development will happen here in Ireland. The Exemplar Network has the capacity to be the catalyst for economic growth in Ireland and we are delighted to be part of this exciting project which will help to foster hundreds, if not thousands of jobs, through the development of an indigenous ecosystem of companies, who will use it as a platform for developing and testing new applications as well as attracting international investment.”

Intune Networks has developed the world’s first programmable fibre optical packet switching platform which is critical to building an Exemplar Smart Network. Developing this technology has the potential to position Ireland for a wave of opportunities based on the future of the Internet that up to now have been considered an area of expertise of regions like Silicon Valley in the US and several Far Eastern countries who are pushing the boundaries of consumer broadband networks. The network will be the first step in creating a next generation smart and green communications infrastructure for Ireland.

John Dunne, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Intune Networks noted: “We are very excited about commencing the work on this critical project to ensure we can play our part in helping to deliver this strategy. We have spent the past ten years developing the technology to address the challenge presented by growing traffic on the internet. Our technology uses up to 75% less energy than today’s networks which are dominated by electronics. This green and smart network will enable new consumer, business and mobile data services to be delivered with 50% less cost and with major advancement in the quality of experience for end users.”

Read More

State's €5m internet investment - Irish Times

2010-04-23T01:00:00.000-07:00

THE DEPARTMENT of Communications has become a direct investor in research, putting €5 million into a new kind of communications network that could revolutionise internet traffic.

Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan described the investment as “unique” yesterday in Dublin as he announced support for the “Exemplar Test Bed”.

It will be used to help research into a new way of transmitting data over the internet that is many times faster and uses much less electricity than existing communications networks, Mr Ryan said.

Irish company Intune Networks developed the technology behind Exemplar. The project will create an initial 80 jobs, with the network coming into operation by this July.

Exemplar technology will also be introduced within Ireland, first in Dublin and then across the country, Mr Ryan told a gathering at Government Buildings that included representatives from Ireland’s top computer and communications companies.

It greatly simplifies data transmission and increases speed by splitting light signals travelling through fibre optic cables into 84 separate parts.

The department did not invest directly in Intune, Mr Ryan said. It paid for a licence from Intune and then hired the company to install and develop the Exemplar test network, which will connect Cork and Tralee.

Intune retains full control over the technology and has international patents, Mr Ryan said.

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Government investing €5m in Intune.. - Business And Leadership

2010-04-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

The Government today announced it is investing €5m in Intune to allow it to develop an exemplar communications test bed, the technology for which was invented in Ireland by two graduate students from UCD.

Intune is developing this technology, which could potentially replace the thousands of silicon computer chips used in internet switches today. As a result it can eliminate costly bottlenecks of data on networks and allow the high-speed, low-energy, high-quality transfer of data. The subsequent dramatic reductions in the amount of energy used also make this technology an attractive prospect for major international companies.

Test bed 100pc-owned by Government
The test bed, which will be 100pc-owned by the Government, will be built in Parkwest Business Park in Dublin and will be open for business, on an open-access basis, in July of this year, creating 80 jobs in its first phase.

The test bed has 64 granted patents which secure the technology and which ensure that Ireland is the first country in the world to offer such a facility.

The aim is that companies will use the test bed for R&D purposes. The Department of Communications said that companies such as Eircom, EMC, Imagine, BT, IBM, ESB Telecom, Imagine, e-Net, Firecomms, Opennet and CeltixConnect have entered into discussions with it on the test bed.

UCD, DCU, UCC Tyndall, NUI Galway and Science Foundation Ireland have also expressed an interest in using this technology for their research purpose, the department said..

Potential to revolutionise the internet
“Today we are investing in the new economy. This technology was invented in Irish universities and developed by an Irish company. It has the potential to revolutionise the internet, transferring data faster and in higher quality than previous technology,” said Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan TD.

The Minister said Intune’s invention also vastly reduces the associated energy costs. “It represents a very exciting prospect to test the applications and services of the future internet,” he added.

“Our partnership with Intune is unique. Government is making the initial investment, will own the test-bed and will ensure it is operated on an open access basis, so that companies and universities can use the network for their own R&D.

“Last year, we launched our strategy for the development of the digital economy in Ireland. Less than a year later we will be up and running with a revolutionary new network that will position Ireland as an international test bed for high-tech, low-energy technology," the Minister added. “We are investing in ourselves, in our own ingenuity. We are betting on ourselves and in so doing helping to create the technology and jobs of tomorrow.”

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Intune Networks promises 80 new jobs... - RTE

2010-04-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

80 jobs are to be created by the developer of a high speed but low energy-using communications network.

The 'Exemplar communications test bed' is being developed by Irish company Intune Networks and supported by a €5m investment by the Government.

The aim is to ensure high quality data can be transferred quickly without generating big energy bills. This is an attractive proposition for international technology companies who have been troubled by costly bottlenecks on data networks.

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"Evolving Communications Networks" - Royal Irish Academy

2010-04-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Royal Irish Academy in collaboration with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources presents, “Evolving Communications Networks: Education in the Service of Ireland’s Next Generation Network Infrastructure Needs”...

Presenting at this workshop was Tim Fritzley, Chief Executive Office of InTune Networks Ltd.

Presentation Title:
“Developments in IP Network design: the latest innovations in the design of IP Networks such as the use of tunable lasers and the integration of switching and transmission functions in optical networks”

Presentation Slides:

'Spotlight' Seminar features Intune Networks co-founder...

2010-04-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

The Irish Times in association with Prosperity is proud to launch, 'Spotlight'. Breaking the boundaries is the first in the series of Spotlight events, delivering quality, innovative and motivational speakers from home and abroad. Breaking the Boundaries takes place on April 23rd in the Mansion House from 2pm to 4pm.

Keynote Speaker:
Guy Kawasaki
Venture Capitalist

Guy Kawasaki is the managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine.He established his professional reputation as a software evangelist at Apple Computer Inc. back in the 80s. He now leads a peripatetic existence and counts blogger, venture capitalist, author and speaker amongst his credentials.

Also
John Dunne - Chief Marketing Officer
Intune Networks

John co-founded Intune in 1999 with Tom Farrell following EU-funded research work at University College Dublin. From 1999-2004 John was CEO of Intune and led the company successfully through its early development phase. In 2005, John took up the position of CMO. He is currently responsible for Product & Market strategy, Product Management, Release Management and all Marketing activities. John has a first class honours electronics degree and a PhD in the field of tunable lasers from UCD and has spent 14 years working on the application of these devices into telecommunications systems. He is a co-inventor on some of Intune's core intellectual property on network systems.

Get Tickets
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Intune Networks to drive fibre revolution into US market...

2010-04-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks, the company behind the world’s first programmable fibre optical packet switching platform that will handle future TV and web, has expanded into the US with the opening of its first office in Boston.

Intune has recruited two senior industry veterans to spearhead the company’s entry into the US market.

Jim Lowrie, a 28 year stalwart of the telecommunications industry, has been appointed as Vice President of Sales and Business Development for the Americas with responsibility for Sales, Business Development and Partnering opportunities for Intune’s expansion in the USA.

In addition Jim Aitken, another 20 year plus industry veteran, is joining Intune as the Senior Director Technical Marketing and Product Management, Americas. Jim will manage Intune’s product features and carrier outreach programmes critical to ensuring that Intune’s next generation technology is well understood and positioned with the leading American carriers.

“With the rollout of Intune’s commercial product this year, a base in the USA is critical for our expansion,” Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks explained.

“There are tremendous global opportunities for Intune Networks to deliver its innovative technology to help revolutionise how next generation networks and web services are developed and delivered. Our US employee base will be a key element in expanding Intune’s market coverage beyond the European carriers into North America and beyond.

“We are delighted to have brought in two such senior members of the telecommunications industry to lead our expansion into the US. Their depth of experience with other global equipment vendors and years of working with and for the leading carriers in the Americas make them uniquely qualified to help Intune maximize the opportunity is this large and crucial market,” Fritzley said.

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The Knowledge Economy

2010-02-25T01:40:00.000-08:00

The smart economy is the holy grail for many politicians but it faces many challenges in the real world, writes Fearghal O'Connor.

These days the phrase "knowledge economy" is bandied about like a salve for all our ills. But are the challenges we face in building such a thing really understood by those who matter? Out in Dublin's Park West business park one company defines the knowledge economy and all that it might or might not be for Ireland.

In 2002 Tim Fritzley was living in California, running Microsoft TV and earning a lot of money. An Irish investor friend asked him to take a look at and size up a then tiny company called Intune Networks run by two UCD PhD graduates, Tom Farrell and John Dunne.

"They flew to California and I spent two days with them and they convinced me that they had solved a very complex problem that the telecommunications industry had been working on for 25 or 30 years," he says.

He agreed to advise them and by 2006 he had packed in his job with Microsoft and moved to Dublin to become chief executive. At that time the company employed 16 people but has grown to 120 people and it is expected to employ 200 by the end of the year. It has developed hugely innovative optical switching systems using tunable lasers for the telecoms industry. It is currently preparing to bring its networking products to market. Fritzley says that in five years the company is likely to employ 2000 people, many of them in high end jobs.

But Intune Networks may also prove to be a terrible indictment of Ireland's efforts to create a knowledge economy. Fritzley says that the question of whether the company should relocate away from this country is a constant and growing issue for its board.

"That question is not settled and it is going to be an ongoing question that my board of directors will continuously ask: is Ireland the right place to be? We have kept the company here to date to get through the first cycle of product development. But it will come down to having the right infrastructure and the right regulatory and tax regime to make it beneficial to launch a big company here."

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MAINS Project Presentation...

2010-02-18T06:23:00.000-08:00

MAINS - Metro Architectures enablINg Sub-wavelengths - Project Presentation

View MAINS Presentation

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Source

Intune Networks awarded major EU contract...

2010-02-18T05:05:00.000-08:00

Intune Networks, the company selected by the Irish State to build its Exemplar next-generation network, has been awarded a major EU contract as part of a consortium involving telecom players Telefónica and PrimeTel.

The company which makes tunable laser technology that will define the future of fibre networks is part of a consortium of companies and universities awarded a major R&D contract under the EU 7th Framework.

The Telecoms Network for Cloud Computing
Intune will provide its unique technology to the program to design a future Telecoms Network for Cloud Computing. The consortium includes national telecoms operators Telefónica in Spain and PrimeTel in Cyprus. The consortium also includes Italian software company Nextworks, and the University of Essex and University Autonoma Madrid.

The consortium – led by Telefónica - will design and demonstrate a network that will allow the next generation of ICT services to be rolled out, giving increased flexibility, control and mobility to businesses and consumers alike, while significantly lowering costs.

A key application is the virtualisation of the standard personal computer, pushing it into what is known as the Cloud. The Cloud permits each user to utilise a low-cost, low-power device - whilst their data and computer power sits inside the network.

Widespread deployment of this type of cloud computing could dramatically reduce the energy bills of users and operators, while also delivering social and economic benefits to the IT industry.

What is the Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-Wavelengths?
The EU Programme is entitled MAINS – Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-Wavelengths. The programme is part of a larger EU Framework which will research the Network of the Future. The MAINS project will design a programmable network to demonstrate a practical way to implement cloud computing in future telecoms networks. Future IT applications can use this programming interface to program liquid bandwidth on-demand to service their requirements.

“We are proud to engage and participate in a European research project like MAINS. As an alternative operator working in a highly competitive environment, it is of essence to us to stay in touch with the latest technological developments and be ready to offer next-generation services,” said Vladimir Ivashchenko, chief technology officer of PrimeTel.

“MAINS provides a unique opportunity to trial a cutting-edge networking technology which will help PrimeTel to stay ahead of competition in future.”

The work of Intune Networks
Dublin-based Intune Networks, formed in 1999 by a group of ex-UCD photonics researchers, has developed a technology that can enable a single strand of fibre to move from carrying one signal from one operator to carrying data from 80 telecoms and TV companies all at once.

Last July, it emerged that Ireland is to become the test bed for Intune’s revolutionary technology. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan TD, contracted Intune to trial its technology here first before it hits mass manufacture. The solution – the Exemplar Network – could sort out the country’s broadband woes and catapult Ireland to the cutting edge of telecoms before anybody else.

The move will grow Intune from 100 workers in Dublin and Belfast today to employing an additional 300 people over the next three years.

“It is a major vote of confidence in Intune’s technology to be part of such a high-profile EU research grant,” Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks explained. “We are delighted to be working with such high-calibre partners from both the commercial and academic communities. This places Intune Networks at the cutting edge of future telecoms network development in Europe."

Fritzley explained the problem Intune has solved is how to evolve telecoms network architectures to cope with the massive increase in traffic demand while sustaining profitability and controlling costs.

“Intune has packaged this breakthrough technology into a carrier-grade networking system with a modern software interface, which we will use to work with the consortium as a critical element in developing the Network of the Future.”

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Intune Networks to expand and hire 80 new staff

2010-01-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

Intune Networks, an Irish firm that has claimed to have solved issues of internet speed and quality, plans to hire 80 people and raise up to €10 million in funding in 2010.

The company has 120 staff in Dublin and Belfast, and is preparing to launch its product, a highly-technical internet switch built using laser technologies.

Tim Fritzley, chief executive of Intune, said that the firm was bullish about the future after solving a problem that other companies had spent decades and ‘‘upwards of $1 billion’’ trying to resolve.

He said he expected Intune to ultimately employ ‘‘several thousand’’ people and have revenues running to hundreds of millions of euro a year.

Late last year, the firm raised €22 million from investors led by Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital. Three international funders invested almost €13 million in Intune in 2007.

Fritzley said that 2010 was ‘‘off to a very fast start’’ for the company, which was founded ten years ago.

‘‘I am very hopeful for a banner year for our product launch and first adopters [of the product]. I think the timing is very good for the commercial release," he said.

Intune will face competition from big firms such as Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent, but Fritzley claimed that the Irish company’s product was cheaper and better than competing products. He said that Intune could be built towards a stock market listing.

‘‘We will start to make decisions about which path to follow later this year, or early in 2011," he said.

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Calling the Tune - Sunday Business Post

2010-01-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

After a hectic 2009,Tim Fritzley took a break over Christmas to return to his native Idaho and catch his breath in the Rocky Mountains.

It’s not surprising he needed a breather - in the past 12 months, he has overseen big advances at Intune Networks, a Dublin-based firm which has developed technology that it claims will revolutionise the speed and quality of the internet.

Last year, Intune expanded to 120 staff, secured €22 million in funding, got a big endorsement from the government and successfully staged the first public demonstration of its technology - in conjunction with rockers Snow Patrol.

But if that sounds like a lot of work for one year, Fritzley is expecting more of the same in 2010.He plans to hire another 80 staff, raise up to €10 million more funding, launch Intune’s product globally and strike multimillion euro deals with major telecoms companies. As Fritzley puts it: ‘‘It’s kind of insane."

That’s because he is trying to do something no one has done before - build an Irish technology firm with annual revenues of hundreds of millions of euro and thousands of staff. For lay people, he says that Intune is ‘‘building a new internet switch using optics’’, but that description hides the deep complexity of the company’s technology.

At its most basic, the Intune system uses different coloured lasers to carry data over existing fibre-optic networks in amore efficient way.

That means that telecoms firms that buy Intune’s switch will be able to offer more - and better quality - internet services to customers, giving them an advantage over competitors using older technology.

The demonstration of the Intune technology - when a concert by Snow Patrol in Dingle last month was broadcast to viewers in a local hotel over fibre - showed the high quality picture and sound that Fritzley claims will revolutionise the telecoms world.

‘‘Intune has solved a problem that researchers have been working on for 20 or 25 years, one that upwards of $1 billion has gone into trying to solve," he said.

He firmly believes that the company can ‘‘get over the hump’’ that foiled other Irish firms and become a global firm to rival the likes of Cisco and Ericsson.

Founded in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell, Intune did early work in tuneable lasers, winning contracts with organisations such as the European Space Agency. But after Dunne and Farrell developed so-called ‘optical burst switching’ technology using lasers, the company refocused its attention on the lucrative communications sector.

In August 2006, Fritzley was lured from a comfortable job running Microsoft TV in America, and moved to Dublin to become chief executive of Intune.

The firm, which had 12 staff at the time, has been on ‘‘a voyage of discovery’’ since then. Heading into 2010, ‘‘the science is over’’ and the company is preparing to ramp up its sales and marketing effort.

‘‘We’re in the chute now and at a point where we can predict an outcome.

Lots of companies don’t get into that chute," said Fritzley.

He expects Intune to record its first revenues this year, and to increase them exponentially from there. With each Intune switch expected to sell for about €300,000 and hundreds of thousands of switches in demand by telecoms operators annually, Fritzley is forecasting revenues of ‘‘hundreds of millions’’ per customer.

He is confident Intune can win business from global companies such as Cisco, claiming the Irish firm’s technology is better and cheaper.’ ‘We are continually scanning the horizon for competition and we believe we’re in a good position," he said.

Some heavyweight figures share Fritzley’s enthusiasm and belief, with the company attracting experienced investors since its inception. Its backers from the early years include ICC Venture Capital (now part of Bank of Scotland (Ireland)), Enterprise Ireland and technology sector figures including Leonard Donnelly and Bernie Dillon.

It was Donnelly who introduced Fritzley to Intune and, ultimately, convinced him to swap his Microsoft job for the small Irish company.

A year after he became chief executive, Intune took a big step forward, raising almost €13 million in investment from Amadeus Capital Partners, Balderton Capital and Spark Capital.

By late 2008, the company had met the obligations attached to the funding, with an expansion in staff and a prototype product in tests with three ‘‘very large European carriers’’, according to Fritzley. He can’t name the companies for reasons of commercial sensitivity, but said that ‘‘the feedback was really positive’’, giving grounds for optimism.

The plan was to raise follow-on funding of about €30 million, to take it to full commercialisation and launch globally. But in difficult economic conditions, the fundraising took longer than expected and the firm had to cut its cloth.

‘‘We went into cash conservation mode," said Fritzley, whose goal was to keep his highly-specialised team together.’ ‘Rather than lay off 15 or 20 per cent of our staff, we had huge salary cuts of up to 35 per cent."

He held on to his 120 staff in Dublin and Belfast, which include 40 with PhDs or Master’s qualifications. T he remainder all had degrees, said Fritzley, who claims to have ‘‘the largest optical networking R&D team in the world’’.

Reflecting the heavy cost of staffing and building its technology, Intune’s 2008 accounts show a loss of €9.5 million that year, bringing accumulated losses to almost €25 million.

T hen, in October last year, it announced the completion of the funding round, with €22 million coming from financier Dermot Desmond, Kernel Capital in Cork, and Intune’s existing investors.

Fritzley would not comment on the valuation placed on Intune, but said it was about 30 per cent lower than the valuation following the previous funding round, reflecting tougher economic conditions.’ ‘Just about anybody can get series A funding, but series B is typically a death round. If you can make it through that, usually you don’t fail," he said.

He said he was pleased with the quality of the firm’s backers, describing Desmond as ‘‘a value investor who stays with his companies’’. The investors now own about 70 per cent of Intune, with the remainder held by founders, management and employees.

Fritzley said the firm intended to raise between €5 million and €10 million more this year to expand the company and get to a cashflow positive position.’ ‘We are looking at our next phase of hiring and will take a serious run at building the sales team. By mid-2010,we should be closing in on 200 people and the new funding, as well as our first commercial revenues," he said.

It will also make progress on a government-backed project to introduce its technology in Ireland.

Under the so-called Exemplar Network project, Intune will build and trial a controlled network using its switches, and then apply the technology to existing fibre networks, bringing its benefits to Irish businesses and universities.

Fritzley described the Exemplar project as ‘‘a very minor investment for big returns for Ireland’’, and believes it will make this country more attractive for business investment.

In the longer term, he sees Intune employing ‘‘several thousand people’’ who will work in technical development and product support and maintenance for customers around the world.

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Tech firm tuned in to network revolution - The Irish Times

2009-12-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

Dublin company Intune Networks is at the forefront of developing technologies that could transform the telecoms industry

A WORLD first was achieved in a quiet corner of Co Kerry last week, with the first demonstration of new technology that could revolutionise the telecoms industry. While Northern Irish band Snow Patrol held an intimate show at St James’s Church in the centre of Dingle as part of the Other Voices series, the concert was transmitted to high-definition screens across the road in Benners Hotel using a fibre-optic network.

The technology was formulated by Dublin- based telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks, which has been tasked with setting up the Exemplar network, a new Government-backed smart network that will be built across the State.

Founded in 1999 by UCD graduates John Dunne and Tom Farrell, Intune Networks, which is based in Park West in Dublin, has developed a potential way of solving one of the biggest problems facing the development of next-generation fibre-optic communications networks: inefficient use of capacity.

The company, which recently closed a €22 million funding round, counts financier Dermot Desmond and venture-capital firm Kernel Capital among its investors.

It has developed a technology known as optical packet switch and transport (OPST). Current fibre-optic networks are underutilised, employing only a fraction of the capacity available because they send data as a single colour of light. Using OPST allows more traffic to be sent over existing fibre-optic networks using different coloured lights.

The live, high-definition transmission of the concert was used to demonstrate the company’s latest technology, a distributed telecoms switch based on optical burst switching. Using this equipment, providers could ensure mass, live, simultaneous content downloads with a guaranteed level of quality.

Users could also connect to local WiFi hotspots with a laptop or mobile device, such as an iPhone, to view the transmission.

It has taken $50 million (€33.9 million) and 10 years of development to come up with the switches that were used to create the local area network in Dingle.

The transmission of the Snow Patrol concert demonstrated how the laser technology could be used to provide simultaneous broadcasts to different areas. “Some of the network arrives in here, and we’re splitting it up and putting it on to the TV screens. Some of the video is going out to the lobby area and the bar where there are four high-def TVs,” says Dunne, speaking in the hotel in Dingle. “You have one laser sending all these signals. What it’s doing is it’s changing colours; it’s bursting one colour to this room, one colour outside, one upstairs. We’re chopping up the video.

“The technology is designed not to drop any packets [units of data]. This is one of the key inventions that the company came up with. Normally, when you send a packet over the internet, if it doesn’t arrive for some reason, a signal sends instructions to send it again.

“With our system, the packet can be chopped up, so if you only manage to send half the packet, it still gets across the network. Then you send the rest of the packet on the next available slot or burst. By creating an asynchronous access to all the bandwidth on the system, you’re able to do quality of experience.”

While the internet has become the global tool of choice for streaming video from remote locations, Intune’s technology vastly improves the possibilities. Current internet infrastructure is inherently unsuitable for such high-quality media broadcasts.

“There is no way the internet could deliver this,” says Dunne. “The internet has an unknown number of switches that your signal would have to go through. Any sort of application that involves live multimedia streaming or interactivity can’t be delivered over the internet. The internet is a fantastic global community, but as a consequence of it being a global community, you have to accept that the quality won’t be there. This is purely a local area network that would work, for example, in the region of Leinster.”

The potential for the technology is vast, opening up opportunities for everyone from local communities to budding TV moguls.

“This network will allow you to set up your own TV station effectively. If you had a gig or a local sports event, you could use the laser to pay for only a small subset of the bandwidth, and it can be monetised. It changes the economics of how this thing works,” says Dunne.

“Because the laser can tune and change, we’ve built a software interface into the network itself. You could go home and in a few minutes set up your own TV station. People could subscribe to it all over Ireland. You could blog over a live high-definition network. It could totally change how communities work because you’ve added video to communities, at the same quality as if you’re sitting next to them in the room.”

The technology can be reprogrammed easily according to the services that are required. It also uses less energy, meaning it has a lower carbon footprint than other internet technologies and fits in with the Government’s strategy for a green economy.

Developing the technology in Ireland will be beneficial to the local economy, with the Exemplar network expected to create up to 5,000 jobs in the future. Intune employs 120 staff in Dublin and Belfast; the development of the Exemplar network is expected to add an extra 350 jobs to the company.

Intune hopes Ireland will become a test bed for the technologies and will be seen as a centre of excellence, putting the State at the forefront of new developments.

The Government is firmly behind the development of the new technology. “Ireland is going to concentrate on a few areas. Optical burst switching is one where we’re leading the world,” says Barry McSweeney, director of the National Knowledge Society Strategy. “The Government intends to invest in this.”

The basic infrastructure for Intune’s technology is already in place, with 400,000 fibre rings installed in cities across Europe and North America. They are costly to install, with fixed systems that are often underutilised.

Dunne predicts that there will be a major shift in the ownership of networks in Ireland in the future. A number of operators exist here, each with their own infrastructure – a situation Dunne believes is unsustainable.

“With our system, many different network operators could use the same infrastructure. Everyone can use the bit of the network they need. What we’ve done is effectively virtualised the use of the infrastructure,” he says.

“The world can’t support all of these vendors. What we’re saying is that one of them will become a virtual operator. They’ll run the physical network and some of the others will just sit on top. They’ll all compete, not on quality, but on the content.”

Dunne predicts that eventually there will be a business model whereby operators compete based on the services they offer, such as cloud computing, or an exclusive entertainment deal they have agreed – a far cry from today’s environment where operators get paid simply for providing internet access.

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NEW laser fibre optic communications system to create 30,000 jobs in Ireland...

2009-12-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

A NEW laser fibre optic communications system will create 30,000 jobs in Ireland, according to Barry McSweeney, Director of the National Knowledge Society Strategy.

The world's first public demonstration of the new technology was held in Benner's Hotel, Dingle, on Saturday night as part of RTE's television series Other Voices.

"This technology has been developed by an Irish company and we're leading the world on this. The Government is not just looking at this development - we're going to take action on it. It has tremendous potential for Ireland and for jobs and we're going to capitalise on this. We believe it will create 30,000 jobs in Ireland over the next 15 years," Mr McSweeney told The Kerryman.

He was representing the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources at the demonstration.

The technology has been developed by In Tune Networks which has its main office in Dublin.

The company was founded ten years ago by two young Irishmen, John Dunne and Tom Farrell.

"I was doing a PhD in Dublin when Tom and I started this project. It's taken €50 million to develop and we employ 120 people now. This year we hired the entire UCC PhD class who were studying opto-electronics. One of our investors is Dermot Desmond. The system will provide, faster and cheaper access through television, laptops and mobile phones and will reduce electricity consumption for service providers by 75 per cent. You could create your own television station with this technology and it will be commercially available next year," John Dunne declared enthusiastically to The Kerryman.

"This development will have real national and international impact. It will reduce energy consumption and reduce operating costs for companies all over the world. We decided to launch it here in Dingle because of the Snow Patrol concert which is part of the Other Voices series," he added.

That series was being recorded in St James' Church on Main Street, just across the road from Benners Hotel.

The Snow Patrol gig was broadcast live to an audience in the hotel who watched it on HD flat screens but others were able to watch it on mobile phones and on laptops. Before the concert John Dunne, Barry McSweeney and the man behind the television series, Philip King, spoke to the audience in the hotel from the church, via the new system.

This was the first public audience to experience the pioneering technology.

You might need a PhD in laser fibre optics to appreciate the significance of this development but, according to industry experts, the Dingle demonstration heralded a new era in communications.

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Snow Patrol gig in Dingle marks a world first...

2009-12-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

THE world's first use of 'optical burst switching' to transmit a live performance will take place in Dingle at the weekend during the recording of a Snow Patrol concert for the forthcoming 'Other Voices' TV series.

Optical burst switching means InTune Networks will show the Snow Patrol concert, live in High Definition in Benners Hotel, where people will also be able to pick up the concert live on their personal devices, laptops, phones, etc.

Snow Patrol fans will welcome the live link to the hotel because, even though the concert venue in St James's Church is just across the road, it has a very limited capacity.

According to Intune this will be the first step in creating a next generation smart and green communications infrastructure for Ireland.

Meanwhile, as Dingle gears up for another round of the Other Voices music series recordings and live gigs in St James's Church the promoters have finally confirmed the line up of acts which will perform.

Aside from Snow Patrol, these include ex Suede frontman Brett Anderson and Mercury Music prize winner Speech Debelle. UK indie songstress Florence and the Machine will also make an appearance, though due to promotional commitments in the UK, Florence won't be appearing as part of a live show but will record a private acoustic performance and interview with presenter Annie Mac which will be included in the TV series.

Tickets for the eighth instalment of Other Voices are like gold-dust once again this year, selling out within minutes of going on sale last week.

The final line-up is as follows; Saturday December 5, Snow Patrol and Ollie Cole; Sunday December 6, Bell X1, The Magic Numbers, The Antlers and Villagers; Monday December 7, Megafaun, Imelda May, The Lost Brothers and The Brothers Movement; Tuesday December 8, Brett Anderson, The Temper Trap, Jesca Hoop and Fionn Regan and Wednesday December 9, Richard Hawley, The XX and Speech Debelle.

On Thursday December 10, Other Voices 'Other Room', the platform for showcasing the very best in new Irish music, will be recorded in a private session in Dingle. Those to be featured in the Other Room in this eighth series will be Valerie Francis, 202s, The Chakras, O Emperor, James McMorrow and one other Irish act that is yet to be announced.

"This event and its transmission using world-first technology is a great example of Ireland as a land of creativity, innovation and inspiration and has the further benefit of establishing small sustainable enterprises which create sustained economic value in the region," said Aidan Pender, Fáilte Ireland's Director of Strategic Development.

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Intune to Showcase Switching First - Irish Dev

2009-11-30T02:33:00.000-08:00

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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Intune Networks Selects Duolog`s Bitwise Register Management Tool - Reuters

2009-10-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Duolog Technologies (www.duolog.com) today announced that Intune Networks, a leading innovator in optical networking, has chosen Duolog's Bitwise tool to manage the register and memory-map infrastructures of Intune`s next generation telecommunications networking products.

Bitwise forms part of Duolog`s award-winning SOCRATES Chip Integration Platform. Bitwise captures and validates register and memory-map information and auto-generates design documentation, VHDL & Verilog RTL, C/C++, SystemC and SystemVerilog code. Bitwise users can also create their own template-based generators. Bitwise is designed to slot non-disruptively into any chip design flow, seamlessly interfacing to open standards such as IP-XACT and supporting the import and export of data from Microsoft Excel, Adobe FrameMaker and other legacy formats.

"Bitwise has enhanced the productivity of our FPGA design flow, making our development process more efficient and less labour intensive," said Tom Farrell, Co-Founder and SVP of Product Development at Intune. "We have automated the definition and use of thousands of registers across 11 different devices, using the automatically generated output across three different design teams. This tool is the centre-point of this design information and is used throughout the engineering functions in the company. The correct-by-design methodology reduces the likelihood of errors creeping in and means that engineers can concentrate on design innovation rather than manual data entry and cross-checking."

About Duolog Technologies
Duolog Technologies is an award-winning developer of EDA tools that enable the flawless and rapid integration of today`s increasingly complex SoC, ASIC and FPGA designs. Duolog`s Socrates chip integration platform employs a modular and extensible suite of tools for I/O layer definition, IP packaging, connectivity and register management.
http://www.duolog.com

About Intune Networks
Intune Networks is a telecoms equipment design company based in Ireland. Over the past 10 years, Intune has 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. Intune employs 120 people and has design centres in Dublin and Belfast.
http://www.intunenetworks.com

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Light Reading includes Intune Networks in Top Picks - PR Newswire

2009-10-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Light Reading, the leading integrated media company serving the worldwide communications industry, today reveals its Top Picks for communications technologies, services, and products. Light Reading's editors, after weeks of discussions with readers, analysts, and industry sources, have each come up with their picks of communications products and services from all over the world that could potentially shake up the industry.

Intune Networks' Optical Burst Switching Technology was picked as one of their Top Picks to shake up the Carrier Transport market over the next 12 months.

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John Dunne of Intune Networks speaks at Cybercom Conference

2009-10-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

John Dunne takes to the stage to explain the technology behind the ‘Exemplar Network’. The company John works for, Intune Networks, are poised to catapult Ireland to the top of the world’s internet stage. Within 2 years we will be using the most advanced broadband network in the world!

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Intune expects to release new product next year - Sunday Business Post

2009-10-05T03:39:00.001-07:00

Telecoms equipment developer Intune Networks expects to release its product to market next year and record its first full year of revenues in 2011, after securing a €22 million round of investment funding last week.

John Dunne, co-founder and chief marketing officer, said that the funding meant that the company could now proceed with a full commercial launch next year.

While Intune has raised approximately €50 million in funding to date from backers, Dunne predicted that the company was likely to record revenues that were multiples of this amount. The typical investment made by telecoms companies in the type of network upgrade facilitated by Intune’s technology was in the order of $10 million, he said.

Intune’s latest funding round was the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year. While the amount of money raised is considerable, Dunne said that this was the ‘‘type of money it takes to bring a telecoms grade product across the line’’. While the deal size is unusual for Ireland, it was ‘‘a typical play in Silicon Valley’’, he said.

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Intune Networks Raises $32.5 Million

2009-10-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks, a Dublin, Ireland-based telecom equipment supplier, has raised $32.5 million in new VC funding. Kernel Capital and financier Dermot Desmond co-led the round, and were joined by Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland and return backers Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and Spark Capital.

PRESS RELEASE
Intune Networks, the Dublin based telecoms equipment supplier, today announced that it has secured $32.5 million in its most recent funding round. Financier Dermot Desmond, through an investment vehicle (“Dermot Desmond”), and Venture capital firm Kernel Capital led the investment with additional funding provided by existing investors Balderton, Amadeus, Spark Capital as well as long term private investors. In addition, Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland participated in this round of financing, to support Intune’s growth in Dublin and Belfast respectively.

The funding round, which was facilitated by Bowen Advisors, is the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector in 2009. It is also the largest private equity investment round in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks said: “We received an extremely positive response to our recent fundraising road show and are delighted to have brought new investors, Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital, on board as well as securing additional support from our existing investors and both governments, north and south of the border.

“The funding will be used for the full commercial product launch in mid 2010, as well as for expanding market coverage beyond the European carriers on into North America and Asia. There are tremendous global opportunities for Intune Networks to roll out its innovative technology to help revolutionise how next generation networks and web services are developed and delivered. We are now fully resourced and sufficiently funded to take advantage of these opportunities, to grow the company in new geographies and to cement our leadership in markets where we are already established.”

Dermot Desmond said: “I have given my support because we are firmly of the view that Intune Networks has developed a disruptive technology that will change the way that telecommunications services are delivered. I’m also delighted to have the opportunity to invest in an Irish company that has developed such a ground breaking technology. More innovation of this kind will help to reinvigorate the North and South economies.”

Niall Olden, Kernel Capital noted, “It’s a testament to the strength and potential of Intune Network’s technology that it has successfully raised funding in the current economic climate. I look forward to watching Tim Fritzley and his team further grow and develop the company as it rolls out its highly innovative telecommunications technology following ten years of research and development.”

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Desmond Among Backers As Intune Raises [Euro]22m in Funds - American Chronicle

2009-10-04T03:15:00.000-07:00

TECHNOLOGY FIRM Intune Networks has closed a [euro]22 million round of funding, which has been led by financier Dermot Desmond and venture capital firm Kernel Capital.

Existing investors Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital, Spark Capital, as well as unnamed private investors who backed the company during its start-up phase, also participated. State development agencies Enterprise Ireland and Invest NI, which provided support for Intune's establishment of a pound(s)9.27 million research and development centre in Belfast earlier this year, also provided funds.

The funding will support Intune through to the commercial launch of its products and a financial break-even position, chief executive Tim Fritzley told The Irish Times yesterday.

The company has focused on the European market to date - it has three telecommunications companies trialling its technology - but the funding will see it move into North America and Asia.

Intune has developed a laser-based technology called Optical Packet Switch and Transport, which allows significantly more traffic to be sent over existing fibre-optic networks using different coloured lights.

It was founded in Dublin in 1999 by UCD graduates John Dunne and Tom Farrell.

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Desmond-backed telco Intune boosted with €22m funds fillip - Irish Independent

2009-10-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

A FLEDGLING Irish telecoms firm is targeting a turnover of "hundreds of millions" within three years after securing €22m from a Dermot Desmond-led group of private equity investors.

Founded in 1999, Dublin-based Intune Networks is advancing a new technology to enable telecoms networks to work more efficiently.

The Irish Government has already asked the firm to build the Exemplar Smart Network here, marking the first step in the country's "next generation" communications systems.

Intune boss Tim Fritzley yesterday said the Irish deal was the "first step" but was "very small" since it only involved supporting a network that would be a "test bed for researchers".

"The big ones are the national telecoms carriers," he said. "We'll do a couple of small deals there in 2009 and then the big ones will start to happen in early 2010."

Ambitious

The big deals in 2010 will drive Intune's turnover to "small millions", all sourced in Europe, Mr Fritzley said. In 2011 the company will branch out to North America and in 2012 Asia will come onto the radar and sales will shoot to "hundreds of millions".

The ambitious forecasts came as financier Mr Desmond praised Intune's technology as something "that will change the way that telecommunications services are delivered".

Mr Fritzley said it was a "huge thing" to have gotten someone of Mr Desmond's business calibre involved, adding that the IFSC founder "is very aware of what we're doing and really understands it".

Intune's business plan predicts break-even for 2011, and the firm has already begun staffing up. "We had 120, we've added another 15 or 20 in the last few weeks, and we'll probably add another 25 by the end of the year," Mr Fritzley said. "Then we'll push past the 200 mark in 2010 depending on the technology's rollout".

Mr Fritzley said he was confident of growth because the efficiencies of Intune's technology become even more important as telecoms networks advance to next-generation wireless technologies.

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Intune Networks raises $32.5 million in venture capital funding - TMCnet

2009-10-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks Limited, an Ireland-based telecom equipment design company, has raised $32.5 million in new venture capital funding. Kernel Capital Partners and financier Dermot Desmond co-led the round, with additional funding provided by existing investors Balderton Capital Management (UK), LLP, Amadeus Capital Partners Limited and Spark Capital as well as long term private investors.

In addition, Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland also participated in this round of financing.

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Venture Capital Sings Intune’s Song - New York Times

2009-10-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks, a Dublin-based supplier of telecommunications equipment, has raised $32.5 million in a new round of funding co-led by financier Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital.

Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland participated, as did previous investors Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners and Spark Capital.

The company said that the funding marked the largest private equity investment round in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

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Intune raises €22m venture investment from investors including Dermot Desmond

2009-10-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

A Dublin technology firm that develops tuneable lasers to make fibre networks more efficient has secured €22m worth of venture capital investment from investors that include Kernel Capital and Irish financier Dermot Desmond.

Desmond, through an investment vehicle 'Dermot Desmond', and venture-capital firm Kernel Capital, led the investment with additional funding provided by existing investors Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital and Spark Capital, as well as long-term private investors.

Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland also participated in this round of financing, to support Intune’s growth in Dublin and Belfast, where more than 100 people are employed by the company.

The funding round, which was facilitated by Bowen Advisors, is the largest private-equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector in 2009. It is also the largest private equity investment round in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

“We received an extremely positive response to our recent fundraising road show and are delighted to have brought new investors, Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital on board, as well as securing additional support from our existing investors and both governments, north and south of the border,” Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks explained.

“The funding will be used for the full commercial product launch in mid 2010, as well as for expanding market coverage beyond the European carriers on into North America and Asia.”

During the summer, Intune Networks were appointed by the Irish Government to make Ireland a testbed for the Exemplar Network, a futuristic fibre network that could host multiple telcos on a single strand of fibre. The appointment has paved the way for Intune to create an additional 300 new jobs.

“There are tremendous global opportunities for Intune Networks to roll out its innovative technology to help revolutionise how next-generation networks and web services are developed and delivered. We are now fully resourced and sufficiently funded to take advantage of these opportunities, to grow the company in new geographies and to cement our leadership in markets where we are already established,” Fritzley said.

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Intune Networks secures €22m in funding - RTE

2009-10-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

Telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks has secured €22m in its most recent funding round.

Businessman Dermot Desmond and venture capital firm Kernel Capital were the lead investors, with additional funding provided by existing investors Balderton, Amadeus, Spark Capital and long term private investors.

Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland also participated in the funding round to support the company's growth in both Dublin and Belfast.

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Intune currently employs 120 people and has design centres in Dublin and Belfast. The company, established in 1999, has developed the world's first programmable fibre optic platform. This allows high quality, on-demand and interactive internet services which uses up to 7%% less energy than current networks.

The firm is leading the Government's programme to build Ireland's Smart Network in July 2009.

The funding round is the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector this year. It is also the largest private equity investment in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

Intune's CEO Tim Fritzley said the funding will be used for the company's full commercial product launch by the middle of next year as well as expanding market coverage beyond the European carriers on into North America and Asia.

'I have given my support because we are firmly of the view that Intune Networks has developed a disruptive technology that will change the way that telecommunications services are delivered,' commented Dermot Desmond.

'More innovation of this kind will help to reinvigorate the North and South economies,' he added.

Intune Networks wins €22m in funding

2009-10-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Expansion planned into North America and Asia

High note: Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley

Irish telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks has secured €22 million in funding, this year's largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector.

The investment was led by financier Dermot Desmond and venture capital firm Kernel Capital, with additional funding provided by existing investors Balderton, Amadeus, and Spark as well as long-term private investors.

In addition, Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland participated in this round of financing, aimed at supporting Intune's growth in Dublin and Belfast respectively.

This is the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector in 2009. It is also the largest private equity investment round in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley noted: "The funding will be used for the full commercial product launch in mid 2010, as well as for expanding market coverage beyond the European carriers on into North America and Asia.

Fritzley added: "We are now fully resourced and sufficiently funded to take advantage of these opportunities, to grow the company in new geographies and to cement our leadership in markets where we are already established."

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Optical Burst Startup Bags $32M - Light Reading

2009-10-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

Irish optical startup Intune Networks has announced a new funding round of €22 million (US$32 million) to help take its optical burst switching platform to full commercial launch and to help it break into North America and Asia/Pacific. (See Intune Secures $32.5M.)

The round, which takes the company's funding to €50 million (US$72.6 million), was led by Irish serial entrepreneur and billionaire Dermot Desmond (think of him as an Irish version of Terry Matthews, if you like...) and Kernel Capital.

The news comes just weeks after Intune announced a deal with the Irish government, which is building a new communications network as part of a broader range of economic stimulus initiatives.

That deal could prove to be a catalyst for the nascent optical burst switching (OBS) market, reckons Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin.

The OBS market is so small it boasts just two players: Intune and Matisse Networks , which has already expanded outside its home turf with an early score in Europe.

Intune says it's in trials with unidentified European carriers, and while it doesn't reveal any sales numbers or projections, the company expects to reach break even in 2011.

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Intune gets Desmond funding - Irish Times

2009-10-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks has announced it has secured €22 million in its most recent funding round.

In a statement today, the Dublin-based company said financier Dermot Desmond and Venture capital firm Kernel Capital led the investment, with additional funding from existing investors Balderton Capital, Amadeus Capital, Spark Capital, as well as long term private investors.

Enterprise Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland also contributed financing to support Intune’s growth in Dublin and Belfast.

The funding round is the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector in 2009, the company said.

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€22m investment for telecoms firm Intune - Irish Examiner

2009-10-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

Financier Dermot Desmond and venture firm Kernel Capital are among investors to have pumped €22m into Dublin-based telecoms equipment supplier Intune Networks, it was announced today.

The investment was secured by the company in its most recent funding round and is the largest private equity investment in the global telecoms optical equipment sector in 2009. It is also the largest private equity investment round in the European telecoms equipment sector and the third largest in the European IT sector this year.

“We received an extremely positive response to our recent fundraising road show and are delighted to have brought new investors, Dermot Desmond and Kernel Capital on board, as well as securing additional support from our existing investors and both governments, north and south of the border, “ said Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley.

Founded in Dublin in 1999 by UCD graduates John Dunne and Tom Farrell, Intune is focussed on the telecoms equipment market and specifically the area of internet switching, where it is developing network architectures to cope with the massive increase in unpredictable online traffic.

Intune currently employs 120 people and has design centres in Dublin and Belfast.

“We are firmly of the view that Intune Networks has developed a disruptive technology that will change the way that telecommunications services are delivered,” Mr Desmond said.

“I’m also delighted to have the opportunity to invest in an Irish company that has developed such a ground breaking technology. More innovation of this kind will help to reinvigorate the North and South economies.”

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You want to find Ireland’s answer to Google or Facebook? You’re looking at it

2009-09-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

The internet is slowing down, but Irish company Intune Networks has the solution to a global problem.

It's not quite the Victor Kiam story where the Remington shaver owner quipped: “I liked it so much I bought the company”, but Tim Fritzley’s story echoes this sentiment. Several years ago, the CEO of Intune Networks – an Irish company that could very soon be the driving force for the future of the internet globally – was the head of Microsoft’s TV division, with networks, internet entrepreneurs and Tier-1 telecom operators vying for his time.

Fritzley was cornered at a trade event by a group of earnest young Irish entrepreneurs who told him they could stop the internet from slowing down. Resignedly, he gave them two minutes.

“I asked them for some Tabasco sauce, I was ready to eat crow.” Within three years, Fritzley abandoned his high-flying career with the world’s biggest software company to join this little-known Irish start-up and relocated to Dublin.

Dublin-based Intune Networks, formed in 1999 by a group of ex-UCD photonics researchers, has developed a technology that can enable a single strand of fibre to move from carrying one signal from one operator to carrying data from 80 telecoms and TV companies all at once. It plans to manufacture and export this product and answers a problem that technology giants AT&T, IBM, Cisco and Bell Labs have been trying to solve for 30 years or more.

The fact is the internet is slowing down. While we all talk about getting faster bandwidth speeds, network operators are struggling to keep up. Every minute, 20 hours of new video are uploaded on YouTube, millions of people converse by sound and video via Skype and more than 300 million people worldwide share text, pictures, video and more on Facebook. All of this will contribute to a bandwidth bottleneck that will see network routers possibly burn out.

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Farmleigh forum aims to create new ideas for recovery... Irish Times

2009-09-18T04:29:00.000-07:00

A MAJOR economic forum aimed at generating new links and ideas to aid Ireland’s economic recovery is to take place this weekend.

The Global Irish Economic Forum, which gets under way at Farmleigh House in Dublin today, hopes to create strategic partnerships between the State, the global Irish community and those with business connections to Ireland.

Organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs, the three-day event will discuss how the economy can position itself for the upturn, innovation on the island and promoting Ireland. About 200 delegates are expected at the inaugural event.

With the Government focusing on developing Ireland’s “smart economy”, the opportunity to connect with potential partners is looking increasingly important.

Tim Fritzley of Intune networks is hoping that the event will help attract research funds into Ireland, by way of academic institutions and industry tie-ins, using Ireland and Intune’s Exemplar smart network, a fibre-optic-based network that can cope with large volumes of internet traffic as a “test bed” for innovative technology.

Mr Fritzley is speaking at the “Innovation Island” workshop tomorrow, which is focusing on green technology and ICT.

“The goal is to attract partnerships based on the Exemplar Network capabilities,” he says. “It will allow Ireland to be a leader in the development of new goods and services. This technology will be in Ireland years before other areas get it.”

The network could attract a variety of firms into Ireland, such as those who want to develop new web applications for the next-generation semantic web and those interested in testing new content distribution models.

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Laying the foundations for Ireland's next-generation network rollout - Irish Independent

2009-09-03T01:36:00.000-07:00

Can Ireland's telecoms leaders collaborate to construct the nation's fibre network of the future?

THERE is no getting away from it: Ireland's first broadband decade was far from being a smooth ride. Instead of speeding down the highways of the future, think of it more like driving a 1979 Ford Cortina with no suspension across a Donegal bog.

Only in the past few years has the speed of progress that's been needed occurred, bringing broadband penetration to over 1.2 million subscribers, moving Ireland from being a laggard and placing it slightly above average in the EU-15.

Continuing this progress and building fast fibre networks will be vital if the country is to bring the trade routes of tomorrow to towns in Ireland that will attract investment and where export-focused entrepreneurs can create local jobs.

The chairman of ComReg, John Doherty, agrees. "We are making progress on LLU. In markets like France where next-generation fibre services are available, LLU has been a precursor to building NGNs. The fact that BT and Vodafone are committed to rolling out more exchanges will mean there will be a footprint to make LLU more competitive."

Doherty also points out that if Ireland wants to see early deployment of services like Long Term Evolution (LTE) - that will mature 3G to a point where services like 50Mbps over mobile networks will be possible or Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification [DOCSIS] 3.0, which will see speeds of 120Mbps over cable - it will need to get its fibre NGN in order.

The country already has an abundance of State-owned fibre networks and ducting lying unused, waiting to be joined up to the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) in 96 towns.

Doherty is spearheading a Stakeholders Group to get all network infrastructure owners in Ireland to work together to build this future network, but also to compete on the network. The Government is also working to create an Exemplar Network with Intune Networks to make use of the State-owned fibre assets and join up the 96 fibre MANs.

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AlcaLu Preps Grand Convergence Plan - Light Reading

2009-08-07T05:05:00.000-07:00

Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) plans to interweave its optical and routing technologies more closely, as part of a strategy designed to accommodate the converging of carrier networks.

The emergence of packet-optical transport systems (P-OTS), for instance, shows a melding of the optical and IP layers. The trend is taken to more ambitious levels in optical burst switching, which uses wavelengths to assign packets' destinations; Matisse Networks has been developing such a technology, and now Intune Networks appears ready to come to market as well. (See Matisse Primes Metro Ethernet Makeovers and InTune Lands Irish Gig.)

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Government's Digital Economy Action Plan

2009-07-30T03:59:00.000-07:00

The Government has moved to put the digital economy centre stage in its strategy for economic growth, recovery and job creation.

The launch of ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy’ this month recognises the national imperative to secure Ireland’s digital future and what actions need to happen to make it a reality.

The strategy brings key components of the digital economy together – infrastructure, innovation and green technology – into one programme.

The wide-ranging plan includes the creation of an Exemplar fibre network and an International Content Services Centre, similar to the IFSC. If successful, the plan has the potential to create 25,000 new jobs, according to the Government.....

Keeping Intune
The construction of an Exemplar network, which will dovetail with the Government’s One Stop Shop and will tie-in with the 94 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) towns, will be spearheaded by a young Irish technology company called Intune Networks. The investment will result in 350 new jobs at the company.

Intune Networks has developed the world’s first programmable fibre optic platform, which is critical to building an Exemplar smart network. The technology effectively uses different colours of light to prioritise web traffic to ensure it arrives at its destination faster. This innovation has already excited the interest of City of London traders who are passionate about fibre, while the Government will present the technology before the EU Parliament and the World Economic Forum.

Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks, says that the plan is to kick off straightaway by creating a template based on a geographic area known as a ‘captured network’, which will be replicated across the country throughout 2010.

The plan includes making use of the rich tapestry of data centres to support cloud-computing businesses and using wireless spectrum efficiently to make Ireland a test-bed for future wireless services.

It is estimated that more than 5,000 direct jobs and a further 5,000 indirect jobs will be created over a five- to 10-year period from the network investment.

However, the core network is only one aspect. Ireland’s next-generation access network needs to be built and few operators, apart from Magnet and Smart Telecom, provide fibre-to-the-home. A pioneering joint venture between Vodafone and BT will see the companies pool resources to sort out the existing problems with copper exchanges, give homes and businesses 24Mbps speeds and could result in further progress around next-generation access via fibre.

The second part of Ryan and Lenihan’s plan involves creating energy-efficient data centres and cloud computing infrastructure. Ireland has a rich trove of data centres such as Data Electronics and Servecentric in Dublin and the Cork Internet eXchange. Choosing to prioritise the development of these centres across Ireland, the Government says, will result in 10,000 high-value jobs over the next 10 years.

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Eamon Ryan Smart Economy Annoucement - Silicon Republic Coverage

2009-07-26T03:14:00.000-07:00

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Digital Economy Report: The Overview

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Digital infrastructure: Ireland’s Next Ardnacrusha Opportunity

Belfast to get a share of 350 new high tech jobs - Belfast Telegraph

2009-07-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

Intune Networks has announced plans to create 350 new high-skilled jobs in Dublin and Belfast over the next three years.

The company was named to lead the Irish government’s programme to build an ‘Exemplar Smart Network’, the first step in creating a next generation communications infrastructure in the Republic.

Intune estimated that the network will allow for the creation of 50 new high tech jobs in the next year and a further 300 additional jobs within the next three years as the network is rolled out.

The company already employs 100 people in Dublin and Belfast of which 90% are high tech research and development jobs.

Its Belfast office employs 34 people and last month announced plans to establish a research and development centre in the city that will create 77 new positions by 2010. The latest announcement will speed up its recruitment plans, a spokeswoman said.

Tim Fritzley, chief executive of Intune Networks said: “The Exemplar Smart Network will open significant opportunities for Ireland as indigenous companies use it as a platform for developing and testing new applications and international companies come to Ireland to base R&D activity here.”

Intune Networks has developed the world’s first programmable fibre optic platform which is critical to building an Exemplar Smart Network.

This new technology allows high quality, on-demand and interactive internet services. It uses up to 75% less energy than current networks which are dominated by electronics.

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25,000 potential jobs for Ireland through smart economy plan - Digital21

2009-07-23T05:20:00.000-07:00

Up to 25,000 new jobs could be in the pipeline if a series of projects aimed at transforming Ireland into one of the world’s foremost digital economies come to fruition, the Minister Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan TD, and Minister of State for Information Society, Minister Conor Lenihan TD, said today.

In what is one of the boldest steps taken by an Irish Government yet towards putting the country at the forefront of the digital age, the Government is to focus on building a smart broadband network called the Exemplar Network that makes use of multiple colours of fibre to dramatically boost the speed of fibre-based communications.

Minister Ryan told siliconrepublic.com that the one-stop shop to pull together all the stranded fibre assets owned by the State that could tie together 90pc of Irish urban centres will be ready to operate in early autumn, and will connect the Exemplar Network to the country’s 94 Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) that encircle key towns.

The resulting network will make Ireland ripe for new job creation by inward investments, as well as enabling entrepreneurs to set up world-class businesses in any parish in Ireland.

Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks, the company that will build the Exemplar Network, said that the plan is to kick off straightaway by creating a template based on a geographic area known as a ‘captured network’, which will be replicated across the country throughout 2010.

The plan has already attracted the interest of the City of London, with its major financial community.

The Government’s deal with Intune will result in 300 new jobs for R&D workers and telecoms engineers, and work is set to begin immediately.

The networks plan includes making use of the rich tapestry of data centres to support cloud-computing businesses and using wireless spectrum efficiently to make Ireland a test bed for future wireless services.

The plan also includes establishing an Internet Content Services Centre (ICSC) that will enable digital rightsholders for movies, music and video games to go to market with intellectual property rights firmly and clearly established.

“We believe the ICSC could replicate and even excel beyond what we achieved with the IFSC,” said Neil Leyden, one of the contributors to the Government’s report ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy’, which was published today and outlines the Government’s new digital economy strategy,.

“The ICSC will be truly innovative and will help place Ireland and bring the content generation and distribution industries together,” Minister Ryan said. “This is about our ambition of brining Ireland to the centre stage in attempts to negotiate between piracy and content owners. This plan will leapfrog Ireland’s credentials in a relatively short time.”

The six-point plan includes capitalising on the nation’s investment in science through Science Foundation Ireland, and Minister Lenihan pointed out that Ireland’s output of patents has doubled since 2005. “We now have a situation whereby 40pc of all foreign direct investments (FDI) last year were R&D investments by global firms,” he said.

The Government’s plan also includes a vision for making Ireland a low-carbon and smart economy by creating a roadmap for smart, clean electricity provision and sustainable development around ICT, energy efficiency and clever innovations around making use of green energy such as the IBM Smartbay initiative.

“While there is a correct focus on the amount we need to save and the spending we must curtail, we must also plan for the jobs of the future,” Minister Ryan said. “We need to stimulate the economy as well in order for recovery to occur.

“The Smart Economy document pledges to make Ireland a centre of high-tech jobs that cannot be outsourced; one that uses our natural resources and our expertise to Ireland’s competitive advantage. The series of innovations in Government policy today will make the smart economy a reality.

“We have identified the challenges the world will face in the next decade. These are climate change, a peak in global oil production and the fight for scarce resources including energy and water. Understanding the challenges means there will be great rewards for the country with the solutions.

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Digital Infrastructure Ireland - Irish Independent

2009-07-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

This week, the Government unveiled its 'Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy', which includes a plan to create an Exemplar Network that will dovetail with its plans to create a one-stop-shop to tie all these stranded assets together and connect them to the MANs.

The decision to build an Exemplar Network will result in 350 new jobs being created at Dublin and Belfast-based tech firm Intune Networks.

Intune Networks has developed the world's first programmable fibre optic platform, which is critical to building an Exemplar Smart Network. This new technology will help to bring the internet to the next level, allowing high-quality, on-demand and interactive services.

Developing this technology has the potential to position Ireland for a wave of opportunities based on the future of the internet. Intune Network's technology, which effectively uses different colours of light to prioritise web traffic to ensure it arrives at its destination faster, has already elicited the interest of City of London traders. Meanwhile, the Government will present the technology before the EU Parliament and the World Economic Forum.

For once, Ireland has a chance to be out in front of the world in terms of digital technology, says Tim Fritzley, CEO, Intune Networks. "This is a very bold plan. We are hard at work preparing ourselves to begin with the first stage of the network in the autumn and we expect to have most of the network operational by the end of 2010."

Fritzley says that Intune's technology puts web services into the switching network, enabling what he calls semantic web for switching, or liquid bandwidth.

"Intune Networks has come up with a sophisticated colour coding fibre optic system," explains Communications Minister, Eamon Ryan TD.

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50 new technology jobs announced - RTE NEWS

2009-07-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

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Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources Eamon Ryan has announced plans to create up to 30,000 jobs over the next decade in digital and clean technology.

50 jobs are to be created in the next year followed by another 300 within three years at Irish company Intune Networks, which is building a new communications network to cut down bottlenecks in data transfer.

The Government is also planning to establish an International Content Services Centre in Dublin and a Marine Research, Test & Development Platform in Galway Bay.

Source

Digital Dreams - Irish Times

2009-07-23T03:11:00.000-07:00

The Government hopes to create tens of thousands of hi-tech, 'green' jobs - but some observers are wondering whether we have the capability or the cash to achieve it, writes LAURA SLATTERY

"SORRY IT'S all a bit technical," Eamon Ryan apologises, as he wraps up a Government media briefing on its grand "green tech" plan to create 30,000 jobs via such innovative delights as Optical Burst Packet Switching. "But it's also real," he adds. "And it will work."

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is convinced that Ireland can do a "digital leapfrog" over our economic rivals and make Ireland a "test bed location" for green technologies. It will begin its task by partnering with InTune Networks to build the Exemplar "smart network" that promises dependable, instantaneous connectivity and much more besides.

But can the so-called smart economy really generate the tens of thousands of jobs that the Government hopes will drag us out of our economic hole?

With many household users and businesses still grappling with the frustrations of broadband, there was plenty of "walk before you can run" scepticism emanating from the part of the communications market that is not Eircom, while Fine Gael communications spokesman Simon Coveney lauded the "exciting ideas" but bemoaned the next round of working groups that they would inevitably spawn.

Elsewhere in the industry, however, there were mentions of Government "bravery", while at InTune Technologies, co-founder John Dunne was in no doubt about the significance of the Government's announcement.

"This is how companies like Google are created," he says.

For Dunne, the point about Exemplar is not that end users get faster, better internet connections, but that the network will solve a "global, economic and technical problem" - permanently de-clogging network bottlenecks through patented tuneable lasers.

"If the problem isn't global, you don't get the multiplier effect from exports. If it's just economic, it can be copied by other countries and if it's technical but not economic, it has no value," he explains. Solving problems that are all three of these things is rare.

But InTune had never really planned to use its technology in Ireland in this way. That the Government has put its hands up and decided it wants to be the early adopters for once seems to have surprised the company as much as anyone: Ireland "normally waits for technology to be rolled out somewhere before touching it". If it acts now, Ireland will have a "two to three year lead time" on other countries, he says. A good thing too: "Ireland can't afford to be a follower anymore."

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Smart economy’ plan to create 30,000 jobs for Ireland - Inside Ireland

2009-07-22T05:12:00.000-07:00

The Government has claimed its new ‘smart economy’ strategy has the potential to create 30,000 jobs over the next decade. The strategy hopes to place Ireland at the forefront of the digital and clean technology revolution attracting investments in the digital and green sectors.

Launching the Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy strategy the Minister for Energy, Communications and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, said the six-point plan would secure a competitive advantage for Ireland.

The plan includes the building of a grid (Exemplar Smart Network). InTune Networks who have found a technological solution to worsening Network (IP) traffic will build the grid. The network company is expecting to employ 300 new staff over the next three years.

Minister for Energy, Communications and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, with Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley, at the launch of the Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy yesterday.

Minister for Energy, Communications and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan, with Intune Networks CEO Tim Fritzley, at the launch of the Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy strategy.

Energy-efficient Data Centres and Cloud Computing are predicted to create 10,000 high value jobs and reduce energy costs placing Ireland on the front line for Green Data Centres.

Another 10,000 jobs are proposed to emerge in the next five to ten years from the government’s plans to create an International Content Services Centre. This centre will bring together individuals with skills in digital creative arts, communications technology and legal professionals in a bid to support the development of the 1,000 digital content companies currently located in Ireland.

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Intune Networks Named By Irish Government As Lead Partner To Develop An Exemplar Network

2009-07-22T04:06:00.000-07:00

INTUNE NETWORKS NAMED BY IRISH GOVERNMENT AS LEAD PARTNER TO DEVELOP AN EXEMPLAR NETWORK FOR NEXT GENERATION SMART AND GREEN COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE - A CENTRAL PART OF THE SMART ECONOMY STRATEGY AND ACTIONS
Intune Networks to create an additional 50 new high tech jobs within 12 months followed by 300 more jobs over the next 3 years

Dublin, Tuesday 21st July 2009 - Intune Networks, the Irish telecoms equipment design company, was today named to lead the Government’s programme to build Ireland’s Exemplar Smart Network. The Exemplar will be the first step in creating a next generation smart and green communications infrastructure for Ireland. The decision to develop the exemplar network using the Intune Networks technological approach was announced by Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Eamon Ryan at the publication of ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy’ strategy document.

According to Minister Ryan, creating an Exemplar Smart Network based on Intune Network’s world leading technology will give Ireland first mover advantage in the establishment of a Smart Economy, helping Ireland leapfrog its international peers in digital infrastructure. This development will position Ireland as a global innovation leader and will potentially deliver significant economic benefits to the Irish economy. The network will be used to demonstrate and highlight the breadth and depth of Ireland’s vision, technologies, research and corporate capabilities which will help to attract more inward investment, rapidly expand job creation and stimulate the Smart Economy.

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25,000 jobs for Ireland through Govt Digital Strategy

2009-07-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

Up to 25,000 new jobs could be in the pipeline if a series of projects aimed at transforming Ireland into one of the world’s foremost digital economies come to fruition, Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD and information society minister Conor Lenihan TD said today.

In what is one of the boldest steps yet taken by an Irish Government towards putting the country at the forefront of the digital age the Government is to focus on building a smart broadband network called the Exemplar Network that makes use of multiple colours of fibre to dramatically boost the speed of fibre-based communications.

Minister Ryan told siliconrepublic.com that the One Stop Shop to pull together all the stranded fibre assets owned by the State that could tie together 90pc of Irish urban centres will be ready to operate in early Autumn and connect the Exemplar Network to the country’s 94 Metropolitan Area Network that encircle key towns.

The resulting network will make Ireland ripe for new job creation by inward investments as well as enable entrepreneurs to set up world class businesses in any parish in Ireland.

Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks the company that will build the Exemplar Network, said that the plan is to kickstart straightaway by creating a template based on a geographic area known as a ‘captured network’ and replicate it across the country throughout 2010. The plan has already attracted the interest of the City of London which has a major financial community.

The Government’s deal with Intune will result in 300 new jobs for R&D workers and telecoms engineers and work is set to begin immediately.

The networks plan includes making use of the rich tapestry of data centres to support cloud computing businesses, use wireless spectrum efficiently to make Ireland a testbed for future wireless services.

The plan also includes establishing an Internet Content Services Centre that will enable digital rightsholders for movies, music and video games to go to market with intellectual property rights firmly and clearly established. “We believe the ICSC could replicate and even excel beyond what we achieved with the IFSC,” said Neil Leyden, one of the contributors to the Government’s report ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy.’

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New plan targets 30,000 jobs - Ryan - RTE News

2009-07-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Source

Communications Minister Eamon Ryan has announced plans which target the creation of up to 30,000 jobs over the next decade in digital and clean technology.

The first measure will see 50 jobs created in the next year, followed by another 300 within three years, as Irish company Intune Networks builds a new communications network which will cut down bottlenecks in data transfer.

Intune system uses laser technology

The Intune jobs will come as a result of a plan to develop what is being called an Examplar Smart Network using Intune's technology.

Trials of the new network are expected to start early next year with the first phase in operation before the end of next year.

Intune has developed a programmable fibre optic platform, using laser technology, which it says uses up to 75% less energy than today's networks. The company says the system was developed to cope with growing amounts of data and video traffic on the internet and allows for greater speeds and higher quality interactive services.

Intune already employs 100 people in Dublin and Belfast.

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Minister unveils 350 'smart' jobs - Irish Times

2009-07-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

More than 350 jobs will be created at a telecoms firm, it was revealed today as the Government announced its drive to develop the so-called smart economy.

A next generation communications grid is being designed which experts claim will allow Ireland to leapfrog other nations attracting investment in the digital and green sectors.

Ultimately the Government claims it has the potential to create 30,000 jobs over the next decade.

Eamon Ryan, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Minister, said the plan would secure investment and employment of the future.

“We are setting a new economic direction for Ireland,” he said.

“In the future, those countries that focus on the development of new energy and communications technologies are those that will have the competitive edge.”

The grid, known as Exemplar Smart Network, will be built by Intune Networks using a new style of fibre optic cables.

The firm believes the infrastructure will create a wave of opportunities based on the future of the Internet which up to now was limited to regions like Silicon Valley in the US and leading Asian countries.

Source

Irish company InTune to build exemplar smart network for Ireland - DCERN

2009-07-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

Making the smart economy real (Department of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources)
View the Technology Action Report - DCENR

Government announces new strategy for digital and clean technology in Ireland targeting 30,000 jobs in the next decade

- over 300 jobs announced today in Irish company InTune for exemplar smart network

“We need to stimulate as well as save” – Minister Ryan

Energy and Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD and Minister of State responsible for the Information Society Conor Lenihan TD today launched “Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy” in Government Buildings.

This is a strategy aiming to position Ireland at the forefront of the digital and clean technology revolution; creating the investment and jobs of the future. With 6 new and innovative plans for Government action and infrastructure development, the report identifies 30,000 jobs as a baseline target for achievement over the next 5-10 years.

Coupled with investment and continued progress in broadband delivery, this strategy plans to secure competitive advantage for Ireland in the high-tech/clean-tech area by positioning ourselves as early movers. The digital revolution and its convergence with energy efficiency represent a new wave of economic and social activity, which can provide the jobs and investment of the future.

The plan includes the building of a new communications network, the establishment of energy efficient data centres in Ireland, a new International Content Services Centre (ICSC) to be located in Ireland, smart electricity networks, a new application to reduce commuting times and allow for home-working and a plan to establish a marine testing centre in Galway Bay.

The 6 Actions are as follows

1) Building an Exemplar Smart Communications Network

Network (IP) traffic is doubling every 2 years, creating bottlenecks across the network. An Irish company, InTune, has developed an innovative technological solution to the problem – Optical Burst Packet Switching. InTune hold the worldwide patent for this new technology and are already supplying MIT, the European Space Agency, NASA and the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Today, the Ministers announced that InTune will be creating over 300 jobs in the next 3 years as they lead the Government’s plan to build Ireland’s Exemplar Smart Network using their technology.

It is estimated that from this move 5,000 direct jobs and a further 5,000 indirect jobs will be created over a 5-10 year period

2) Energy-efficient Data Centres and Cloud Computing

The Government is planning to position Ireland as a centre for Green Data Centres i.e. reducing the cost of data centres by reducing the amount of energy they use.

Cloud computing is a method of storing data remotely, thereby lowering server and energy costs. EMC’s data centre in Cork supports 1700 jobs. This success with new energy efficiency technology can be replicated across the country.

Choosing to prioritise the development of these centres across Ireland will create 10,000 high value jobs over the next 5-10 years.

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