UTEL technology designed and built in the UK to enter Chinese Market

UTEL, creator of a world-first technology called Fast Light which dramatically improves customer service and reduces cost for telecom service providers, has agreed a new joint venture with Chinese company Nanjing Orient Info & Tech. Co Ltd.

The joint venture known as UTEL Orient will be based in the country’s commercial capital, Nanjing. As part of the agreement, the Chinese company will market and distribute technologies developed by Europe-based UTEL, a multi-faceted research and development organisation.

At a major optics tradeshow in September UTEL announced that it had finished work on Fast Light, a groundbreaking solution for automating the fibre repair process and carrying out protection switching of optical line terminal (OLT) ports, a technical achievement never before realised. This technology will be promoted by the joint venture in China where fibre deployment is rapid.

“We are confident that this new joint venture will be very successful as all three of the big Chinese service providers have indicated that they are in need of a fibre faulting solution like Fast Light, especially one which is capable of performing remote diagnostics that the entire industry previously thought impossible,” said Frank Kaufhold, Managing Director of UTEL.

A single PON fibre failure can result in 64 customers losing their TV or internet access. Fast Light allows service providers to identify all customers potentially affected by a fault remotely, within minutes and sometimes before a single call has to be made to the customer contact centre. This allows the operator to meet restoration expectations whilst dramatically reducing OPEX.

Kaufhold added: “The Chinese market needs a solution like this and we are confident that Nanjing Orient will be the perfect outlet to get it quickly into the rapidly growing fibre market. Fast Light was built for purpose, to detect faults in fibre networks. It therefore operates above and beyond any technology adapted from copper detection technologies.”

The joint venture announcement is good news for the European technology innovation industry. Recently released research statistics, funded by Nesta, report that the UK’s continued innovation efforts represent 17 percent of its GDP.

Jason Yang, CEO of Nanjing Orient, commented: “This is an important investment for Nanjing Orient, as the Fast Light technology is like no other we have seen demonstrated before. Its commercial and technical benefits are key selling points for us and we can clearly see a viable benefit for both companies involved in this venture. We are looking forward to implementing and benefiting from this creative technology.”