Telecom Valley facts for kids
Telecom Valley was a special area in Sonoma County, California. It was mainly found in the Redwood Business Park in Petaluma, California.
Telecom Valley was a name given to a stretch of land along Highway 101 in Northern California. This area was between Petaluma and Santa Rosa in the North San Francisco Bay Area.
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How Telecom Valley Started
The name "Telecom Valley" came from Silicon Valley, a famous tech area in Southern California. In 1969, a man named Don Green started a company called Digital Telephone Systems (DTS) in San Rafael, California. People later called him the "Father of Telecom Valley."
DTS was the first important company that helped Telecom Valley grow. It moved north into Sonoma County because land and homes were cheaper there. DTS made new telecom equipment, like systems for connecting phone lines and office phone systems called PBX.
Big companies like Bell Labs and Western Electric (parts of the original AT&T) used to control the market for these systems. But DTS was an early leader. Harris Corporation bought DTS in 1980.
Optilink: A Key Company
Don Green, along with a team from Harris Digital Telephone Systems, started Optilink in Petaluma, California, in 1987. Al Negrin was a co-founder. Other important early employees included Tom Eames, Dave Ehreth, Dave Malloy, and Chet Stephens. All of them had worked with Don Green before.
Optilink is seen as the main company that led to many other telecom equipment suppliers in Telecom Valley. In 1984, the Bell System divestiture (when AT&T was broken up) created seven new phone companies called RBOCs. These RBOCs could now buy equipment from any company, not just AT&T's own. This opened up a huge market for new equipment, including systems for connecting phone lines. This big opportunity was why Optilink was formed.
A new research group called Bellcore, owned by the RBOCs, started setting new standards for network technologies. Optilink hired George Hawley, who helped create these standards. He designed Optilink's product plan. The system they developed was called the Litespan-2000. It became a leading product for the next generation of phone line connection systems.
Connecting Phone Systems
Optilink's system helped connect phone exchanges (big switching systems like the AT&T 5ESS) to other equipment. This meant that companies making switching equipment could no longer control the entire market for connecting phone lines. This opened up a nearly $2 billion market for other equipment suppliers.
Around the same time, a new fiber optic standard called SONET (Synchronous Optical Networking) was being developed in the US. Optilink was created to build a new type of phone line connection system that combined Bellcore's standards with the new SONET standard. Optilink's design became the standard for these new systems. Because of this, all seven RBOCs and a large independent company called GTE started using Optilink's equipment.
Company Changes and Growth
Optilink was bought by DSC Communications in 1990. Later, a large French company called Alcatel bought DSC. In 2006, Alcatel merged with Lucent (which was part of Bell Labs) to form Alcatel-Lucent.
Together, DSC and Alcatel sold a huge number of Optilink's Litespan 2000 systems. By 2000, these systems served over 50 million phone lines! Telecom Valley has been very important in the US market for connecting phone lines. Few other areas in the world have been so dominant in a major telecom system.
Telecom Valley companies have provided phone service to about one-fourth of the US population. This includes the 50 million lines from Optilink/DSC/Alcatel, plus sales for many more years, and systems from other successful companies like Advanced Fibre Communications (now Tellabs) and Calix.
More Companies and Spin-offs
Over the years, many other companies started, were bought, or spun off from DTS or Optilink in Telecom Valley. These include: Telenetworks, Diamond Lane Communications, Advanced Fibre Communications, Next Level Communications, Fibex Systems, Fiberlane/Cerent, Mahi Networks, Calix, Turin Networks (now Dell), Dilithium Networks, Teknovus (now Broadcom), and Cyan Optics.
These companies together led to the name "Telecom Valley" because so many telecom equipment suppliers were in one small 10-mile area in Sonoma County, California. Most of these startups were bought by bigger companies, much like DTS was bought by Harris and Optilink by Alcatel.
By 2009, only a few Telecom Valley startups remained independent. These included Cyan and Calix. Calix has now taken over as a leader in the phone line connection market. The companies that bought these Telecom Valley startups include Cisco, Alcatel, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia, Motorola, DSC, Tellabs, General Instrument, Force10, and Meriton.
The term "Telecom Valley" is not used as much now in Sonoma County, California. This is because of the "dot-com bubble" burst in the early 2000s, which affected many tech companies.
Legacy of Telecom Valley
In 2003, a market research company called RHK said that Alcatel was still the top seller of Litespan-2000 systems, even 20 years after Optilink started. This shows how important the people and opportunities were, starting with DTS, then Optilink, and eventually all of Telecom Valley.
Many companies closed down or moved away after being bought many times. But the story of Telecom Valley and its many people and companies is now a part of the history of Sonoma County, California. Don Green is still seen as its father.
Books About Telecom Valley
Don Green wrote a book called Defining Moments, which came out in October 2016. It tells the story of his life and how he started four successful telecom companies, earning him the nickname "Father of Telecom Valley."
George Hawley also published a book called “Tangled Wires” in 2017. It shares some insights into the Optilink story.
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