"We wire-up wireless communications," they say with a smile at Israeli company Foxcom. The company develops systems for translating wireless signals for transmission via optic fibre, thus freeing-up one of the most troublesome bottlenecks in the area of telecommunications.
Up to now, coaxial cables have been used to connect the antenna with the wireless receiver, and they have several limitations. If an electric signal is passed through a coaxial cable more than 10 metres long, it loses power and requires line boosters, which create other problems - chiefly interference.
Foxcom has developed a system that translates the wireless signal into a laser beam, forming an optical signal which can be transmitted many kilometres through an optic cable. The result: the capacity to transmit wireless signals at fast speeds of up to 2 gigabytes, with minimal energy loss.
Telecommunications conglomerate Globalstar was impressed by the technology, and decided to use it in the satellite receiver stations it is deploying around the world. Globalstar is about to launch 56 low orbit (LEO) satellites to set up a cellular-satellite telecommunications system. The project will cost $2.5 billion.
Globalstar brings together ten leading telecommunications companies, and by next year plans to offer telephony, data and fax transmission, paging, and addressee location services. The network will have more than 200 ground stations around the world, each with four antennae tracking the satellites.
Foxcom was founded in 1993 by Howard Loboda, who immigrated to Israel six years ago from Los Angeles. Loboda worked as chief scientist at US company Ortel, Foxcom’s only competitor anywhere in the world.
At present, the company is based in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, but will be moving to Har Hozvim. It employs 45 people, and its ownership is divided between Loboda (40%), Israel Seed Partners (20%), the Apax-Leumi fund (15%), Oppenheimer (7%), European (5%), and Korea Technology Bank (5%).
In January this year, Apax led a $4 million money raising exercise, after Foxcom’s 1996 sales totalled some $1 million. Since then, the company has doubled its workforce.
Loboda says the company plans another private placement in 1998, and after that, the aim will be an IPO in the USA. Foxcom’s customers include Hughes, Bellsouth, Westinghouse, British Telecom, Globalstar, Scientific-Atlanta, Alcatel, Marconi, Siemens, Nortel, Samsung, Telecom South Africa, Singapore Telecom, and Rupert Murdoch’s News Data Corporation.