Luminous Networks, a start-up based in Cupertino, California, named Chris Stark to the position of President and CEO. Company founder Alex Naqvi, will continue to provide strategic direction for the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Stark previously served as Group Vice President of Alcatel Optics, North America, a multi-billion dollar business unit he helped form and grow. Prior to his most recent assignment, Mr. Stark held positions as Vice President and General Manager of Intelligent Optical Networks Division at Alcatel and Technology Marketing Director for Alcatel’s Telecom Corporate Office. http://www.luminous.com
- In October 2003, Luminous Networks introduced new versions of its multi-service provisioning platforms for delivering data services over legacy SONET/SDH infrastructure. Luminous Networks, which has been an early developer of metro access solutions based on Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) and MPLS, said its new SONET/SDH interfaces are a natural extension of its PacketWave family of products.
- In September 2003, Luminous Networks announced a reseller agreement under which CIENA will market, sell and support its “PacketWave” optical transport products worldwide. Luminous’ PacketWave E-Series is a low-cost multiservice transport platform for 1 Gbps or 2.5 Gbps metro rings. Like Luminous Networks’ existing M-series (metro core) and C-Series (metro access) platforms, the PacketWave E500 leverages RPR layer 2 technology to integrate Ethernet and TDM services using ring architectures that are cheaper and more bandwidth-efficient than conventional SONET/SDH.
- Also in September 2003, Luminous Networks raised $25 million in series E funding led by CIENA and venture firm DCM-Doll Capital Management. The round was supported by investments from all the significant current investors including DynaFund Ventures, Vanguard Ventures, Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Pyramid Technology Ventures. Luminous Networks had raised over $148 million in its four previous rounds of funding.
- Scientific-Atlanta and Luminous Networks offer a joint RPR solution targeted at cable operators. Scientific-Atlanta OEMs the Luminous platform and provides Asynchronous Serial Interface (ASI) and Intermediate Frequency (IF) video cards that plug into the metro optical access platform.