Industries of the future - Silicon Republic

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

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.
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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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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...

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...

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..

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...

Source

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

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

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...

The Exemplar Network...


The Future of the Internet...

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

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

(Clip from RTE 6 ONE News)

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

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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

RTE ONE NEWS:

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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...

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

€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.”

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

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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State's €5m internet investment - Irish Times

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

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

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

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...

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...

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

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...

MAINS - Metro Architectures enablINg Sub-wavelengths - Project Presentation



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Intune Networks awarded major EU contract...

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

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

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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