ComNet's George Lichtblau talks fiber optics

George Lichtblau founded IFS (which has been sold and merged into GE), and now has launched ComNet, a new fiber optics technology firm in Connecticut. In this interview with SecurityInfoWatch.com, he discusses technology trends for fiber-based networks as used for security communications.

SecurityInfoWatch.com recently caught up with George Lichtblau, a long-time developer and business man in the area of fiber optic signaling systems. Lichtblau founded IFS (International Fiber Systems) in 1986, and then sold that prospering business to General Electric in the spring of 2003. Now, five years later, Lichtblau is back in the world of fiber optics with his new firm ComNet (Communications Networks). He's developed new products that use new designs and transmission theories for fiber optic cabling, and he's also looking at Ethernet-based transmission systems. In a quick interview, Lichtblau talks about technology changes like how IP video is driving fiber optic installations and what's happening with his new company.

SecurityInfoWatch: Is fiber optics technology still rapidly changing? If so, what's new?

George Lichtblau/ComNet: In the point-to-point application, there are no new methods of transmitting signals over fiber; there still is amplitude modulation, frequency modulation and digitally encoding. But recently, there have been changes to component availability that have brought big advances to the way you can send a signal over fiber. For example, many of the products that I designed at IFS and are still sold today. They are from designs done in the 80s. They are still good solid designs, but things changed in 20 years.

Back then we had to use two fibers on a lot of products because using Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) to transmit and receive on one fiber was cost prohibitive. Now, it's become more affordable. With the new ComNet line, the majority of our products are one-fiber designs and we sell them at the same cost as most competitors' two-fiber designs. This saves the installer time and money. It also frees up the end user to have a free fiber available for another application.

Many of our readers, as you might expect, are very familiar with IFS and its product line. What's going to be different with ComNet?

That's an interesting question to have an answer for. With GE's recent announcement of the integration of IFS into GE Security, going forward, the IFS your readers are familiar with is disappearing and will be very, very different. So, most certainly ComNet will be much different than what IFS has become.

When I started in the fiber business back in 1986, what we did as a company was make what was considered a very technical product and make it easy for integrators and dealers to adopt. We took the mystery out of the product. It was a great formula then and still works today. As many of the big companies pull back from truly supporting their products the traditional way, ComNet is going the other way. ComNet will be comprised of a group of what I consider very talented people and ComNet customers will have a sustaining resource for all their communication and transmission product requirements. And we have wrapped the whole company around a very high level of customer service, technical support and overall competence.