NEW YORK-Rumors of analog’s death are premature, according to a group of former IBM Corp. executives who have joined with other industry veterans to form a new company to exploit high-speed analog transmission, first over plain old copper wire and later over the airwaves.
Innovative Network Technologies Inc., headquartered in the Austin, Texas, suburb of Lakeway, has ambitious plans for revitalizing analog technologies, which represent information in a continuous spectrum rather than the discrete ones and zeros employed in digital computers and communications.
R. Andrew Heller, chairman, said two of the many possible applications for INT’s updated analog are these: surmounting the last-mile challenge of getting high-speed Internet data into residences and businesses that aren’t situated next to fiber-optic cables and increasing the efficiency of the radio spectrum to revitalize analog cellular phones.
Among other achievements at IBM, Heller led development of Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) microprocessors and the RS workstation. Later, he helped launch several companies, including HaL Computer Systems, Rambus Inc. and S3 Inc.
Started 18 months ago as a research and development enterprise, Innovative Network Technologies so far has secured at least 17 patents related to communications technology, said Joe Formichelli, president and chief operating officer.
Formichelli headed IBM’s ThinkPad notebook computer operation, and was most recently president and chief executive officer of Hayes Microcomputer Products.
Innovative Network Technologies has received more than $2.6 million in financial backing from Austin Ventures and several other sources, company officials said.
“We’ve discovered and patented some concepts about analog technology and copper wiring that will have a huge impact on business and education communications, especially for those considering upgrading their premises wiring to increase bandwidth,” Heller said.
“Back in the 1960s, there were many good ideas in analog communications technologies. We found that no one had gone back and looked at these ideas for modern applications.”
By applying modern manufacturing techniques to analog research “all but abandoned” more than 30 years ago, INT plans to deliver silicon-based products that will enable “last mile” data rates of 100 megabits per second and higher at a cost less than competing fully digital solutions, Heller said.
“Just a few years ago, the circuits needed to do this kind of thing were very expensive,” he added.
“Today, we’re talking about transistors per penny, compared to transistors per dollar a few years ago.”
Later this year, the company plans to begin shipping preliminary versions of its products. Heller said the first product is intended for school buildings, which often are too old and expensive to wire for computers. Among INT’s early products will be devices that use analog technology and ZCM modulation, equalization and filtering techniques to move digital signals at very high speed.
Innovative Network Technologies already has conducted field trials for distributing high-resolution video and computer data in the Texas State Capitol and for linking a digital display on a prototype gasoline pump to the remote central computer for Dallas-based Dresser Industries, Heller said.
