Fibernova Systems is a small company located in Valencia, Spain, that started in 2010 with a clear vocation towards setting new landmarks in the Telecommunications Industry both in Wireless and Optical communication fields.

With a strong scientific background provided by the Technical University of Valencia and its spin-off DAS Photonics, together with the support of its main shareholder Fibernet, a major Spanish photonic systems manufacturer, Fibernova is ideally positioned to reach its objectives of contributing to the Telecommunications ecosystem with engineering services and high-value products.

In its first years, Fibernova acquired first-hand experience of the state of the art of the Telecommunications networks with different turn-key deployments for Spanish operators. The company realized the importance of field-testing new technologies before deploying them to real application environments. Small-scale deployments, within controlled environments, together with well-defined testing protocols and training of the installation personnel can provide time and money savings to companies willing to introduce new technologies.

In its short trajectory since 2010, Fibernova has participated in four EU-funded research projects: FIVER and SARABAND in FP7, TWEETHER and ULTRAWAVE in H2020. Since SARABAND Project (2011), Fibernova has been part of European consortiums being responsible for the Field Trial activities for different wireless technologies. In H2020 ULTRAWAVE, the key is to demonstrate wireless communications at untapped frequency bands such as 120 GHz and 300 GHz. Fibernova will devise a field trial tailored in terms of range, capacity and number of nodes to be interconnected to the technology being developed in the consortium.

Interview with Antonio Ramirez, Project Manager at Fibernova, leader of ULTRAWAVE’s WP6 “System testing and proof of concept in realistic scenarios”.

• How is working in a high-tech company like Fibernova?

The participation of Fibernova in H2020 initiatives such as the ongoing TWEETHER and ULTRAWAVE projects provides us with a deep insight of the research and development process leading to new mm-wave components and systems that will allow wireless communications in frequency bands that could not be used with the current state of the art of the technology. Being ready for the Field Trial of both projects is an important responsibility for us, after witnessing all the efforts of our partners to overcome technological limitations and achieve the objectives of the program.

Fibernova’s main role is to contribute to the development process with an operational point of view and prepare a testing environment within UPV Campus to test the developed equipment and prove its performances. The latter implies that Fibernova is responsible of managing a campus-wide network linking several buildings where the different wireless nodes can be tested, registering the achieved performances during significatant periods (weeks, months) and correlating the results with weather conditions such as rain intensity.

• What are the usual challenges that you face in your company?

The main challenges for Fibernova are ensuring the Field Trial runs smoothly, minimizing unexpected incidences that could interrupt the performance assessment of the systems under test. In order to achieve that, every system in the network needs to be monitored and key parameter indicators analysed to detect and possibly avoid downtimes of the testing network. We have as well the need of continuously upgrading the network performances to be able to test high speed networks such as ULTRAWAVE’s.

• What do you think is the most interesting fact about ULTRAWAVE project?

The ULTRAWAVE Project shall open the frontier of new frequency bands above 100GHz to the Telecommunications industry. From the beginning of the project, the efforts of the scientific and industrial partners to push the barriers of the technology are being outstanding. Being able to test in 2020, together with UPV, the first prototypes of 120 GHz and 300 GHz communications systems to be developed in ULTRAWAVE is an enticing perspective and a great motivation for the company to provide the consortium with valuable contributions towards a successful demonstration.

For more information on Fibernova, click here.