TONY PEARSON LUMENISITY Q&A
LUMENISITY’S HOLLOWCORE FIBRE:
A REVOLUTION IN FIBRE OPTIC CABLE?
The capabilities of Lumenisity’s NANF® hollowcore fibre have caused something of a stir in the fibre optics communications industry. Optical Connections editor Peter Dykes spoke to Tony Pearson , Lumenisity’s VP Sales & Marketing, to find out more about this potentially game-changing technology.
How did the project to develop NANF hollowcore fibre come about and why was it decided to
non-linearity and lower dispersion and is able to handle higher power levels than conventional single-mode fibre (SMF). These performance benefits can be exploited to help overcome the capacity and reach challenges in today’s optical networks. We have made CoreSmart interfaces compatible with SMF and associated amplifiers and transmission equipment, this extends the total reach and the number of possible future applications.
can be fusion spliced using certain types of commercially available splice machines with a purpose designed fusion splice recipe. This allows field jointing of multi-cable segments in challenging outdoor applications. It can also be jointed to single-mode equipment such as termination hardware, optical multiplexers and amplifiers, greatly extending the reach and range of networking applications compared to other conventional legacy hollowcore fibres, for example 5G and DCI. Lumenisity’s customers recognise the performance advantages of CoreSmart that help to drive greater value in the products and services they can offer their customers, however as a policy, Lumenisity does not publicise any cost or pricing information.
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create a spin off company?
Lumenisity was formed in 2017 as a spin-out from the University of Southampton to commercialise
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breakthroughs in the development of hollowcore optical fibre. The initial investment was in high-frequency trading (HFT) as a clear use case. Now the technology has developed further, we are expanding our focus markets. Lumenisity first deployed hollowcore cable carrying production traffic in February 2017 and has cables deployed in diverse geographic locations carrying traffic in indoor and challenging outdoor environments, and we’ve been granted many patents that cover NANF hollowcore fibre and interconnect technologies.
Is it more difficult to manufacture than conventional fibre?
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There are many different sub-categories of ‘conventional fibre’ that operate in different
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applications. The solid-core fibre industry has had more than 40 years to evolve, whereas NANF technology is in its early infancy, and its full potential is yet to be exploited as we continue to make performance improvements.
Is hollowcore fibre suitable for all fibre communications applications, or is it suited to
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more specific applications? If the latter, why is it so suited and what distances can it carry data?
What are the advantages over conventional fibre?
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How does it compare to conventional fibre in terms of characteristics such as
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In a conventional optical fibre, light signals travel through solid glass, whereas the light inside a
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We are still exploring the range of usage cases where this type of technology can provide most
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bendability, ease of use and cost?
hollowcore fibre is guided along a core structure that comprises of air. Since light travels more quickly in air, data signals travel 50% faster in Lumenisity’s NANF CoreSmart® cable. CoreSmart has lower
benefit, especially as attenuation is improved. In summary, in any application there is a 2.25 increase in geographic footprint for any given latency envelope:
TP CoreSmart can also be deployed in indoor and outdoor situations use the ducting, racking and patch panels just like conventional SMF. NANF
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| ISSUE 25 | Q3 2021
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