Company Fact Sheet
Overview
Located in Santa Clara, California and founded in November 1999
by three broadband communications veterans, Aurora Networks is led by a seasoned
management team that has built, designed and manufactured several generations of
lightwave systems and, additionally, has strong relationships with the major
multiple system operators (MSOs). Aurora is a leading manufacturer of advanced
optical transport systems for broadband networks that support the convergence of
digital broadband, voice, video and data applications. Aurora designs, develops
and markets next-generation systems that will accelerate and simplify the
convergence of video, telephony and the Internet. Aurora's patent-pending
products have been shipping to Tier 1 MSOs since September, 2001. Innovative
engineering, proven quality, and exceptional service has spurred the company’s
significant growth, establishing it in 2006 as the world’s third-largest supplier
of advanced optical transport systems to the broadband cable market.
Corporate Vision
To be the leading provider to the broadband industry of fast,
flexible, reliable and cost-effective high-bandwidth optical transport systems
that enable broadband service providers to increase capacity for the coming
generation of bandwidth-intensive entertainment, information and communications
services.
Investor Relations and Funding
Aurora Networks, a privately held corporation, initially received $10
million in Series A funding from Battery Ventures, one of the leading venture
capital firms in the information technology industry. In a second round, Aurora
received $20 million in funding from the combination of Battery Ventures,
Castile Ventures and ComVentures, with the latter leading the round. Most recently,
the Sprout Group joined previous investors in leading a third round that provided
approximately $30 million in additional Series B funding.
Executive Management Team
The Aurora management team is comprised of proven executives who
have developed some of the most advanced optical networking systems currently
in the market. The founders bring together advanced systems expertise, extensive
experience in fiber optics and laser technologies, and a deep understanding of
customer needs.
Guy Sucharczuk
Chairman, President and CEO
Sucharczuk is a widely recognized and respected industry leader, known for his
ability to bring advanced technology solutions to the market, and is a co-inventor
on nine Aurora Networks patent applications. Before founding Aurora Networks, he
was General Manager of C-Cor.Net's optical products development and manufacturing
facility in Sunnyvale, California and, prior to C-Cor.Net's acquisition of Silicon
Valley Communications, Inc., served as the latter's Vice President of Research and
Development, product marketing and operations, during which time he helped build
the company into a full line broadband optical network company and is listed as
co-inventor on a number of patents pending approval. Sucharczuk first entered the
broadband communications industry as a member of the Harmonic Lightwaves, Inc.
R&D staff and, subsequently, the marketing department, where he managed the
product development and marketing of Harmonic's return path products and element
management products. Under his management, these product lines became major revenue
and profit producers and played a significant part in Harmonic's positioning for
its successful Initial Public Offering in May of 1995. Sucharczuk earlier worked
in the R&D departments of Avantek and Motorola. He is a member of the IEEE and
SCTE and has been published in numerous trade publications and journals.
Kenton Chow
Chief Financial Officer
Chow's career has spanned more than 20 years of financial experience in the
computing, networking, semiconductor and software sectors, including executive
positions at Azul Systems, Catena Networks, Sun Microsystems, Cobalt Networks,
Symantec Corporation and Bay Networks. He has expertise in all aspects of financial
management including initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, financial
planning, cash flow management, and achieving capital growth through private and
public financings. Chow holds both a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a
Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Santa Clara University. He is a certified
public accountant and serves on the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business
advisory board of directors.
Oleh Sniezko
Chief Technology Officer
Sniezko has many years of broadband systems engineering and telecommunications
R&D experience. Prior to joining Aurora, Sniezko was with AT&T Broadband for
six years, serving four years as Vice President of Engineering. At AT&T
Broadband, Sniezko was instrumental in developing leading edge and widely deployed
cable system architectures, including LightWire® and Oxiom®. Prior to
AT&T, he worked for eight years at Rogers Engineering, and earlier spent
thirteen years in research and development at the Institute of Telecommunications
in Wroclaw, Poland. He is a recipient of the 1997 Polaris Award from the Society
of Cable Telecommunications Engineers for his outstanding achievements in
implementing fiber optic technology in broadband telecommunications networks.
Active in a series of CableLabs and NCTA projects and acknowledged as an industry
expert, Sniezko has been widely published and has participated in many industry
committees, conferences and seminars.
Krzysztof Pradzynski
Vice President, Research and Development
Pradzynski co-founded Aurora after holding key positions at Rogers Communication,
Inc., Harmonic, Inc., and Silicon Valley Communications, Inc. (acquired by C-COR.net).
At Harmonic, he was instrumental in developing the first scaleable node in the cable
television industry. While at SVCI, Pradzynski was one of the key developers of
AT&T's LightWire®.
Charles Barker, Ph.D
Vice President and Chief Scientist
Also a founder, Barker comes to Aurora from Silicon Valley Communications, Inc.
(acquired by C-COR.net), where he served as director of product marketing. Prior to
joining SVCI, Barker was a member of the technical staff at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, where he led development efforts in large-aperture harmonic
generators and studies of other nonlinear optical phenomena in laser-fusion drivers.
Barker's graduate research at Stanford University involved the use of nonlinear
optical spectroscopy for the study of ultrafast processes in condensed matter.
Michael Yost
Vice President, Operations
Yost joined Aurora Networks as Vice President of Operations in November 2004,
bringing with him over 30 years of operations and manufacturing experience. Before
joining Aurora, Mike served as VP of Operations for Pedestal Networks and C-Speed, Inc.,
and, prior to that, was VP of Operations at Harmonic, Inc., where he was responsible
for worldwide operations, including materials planning, purchasing, production control
and quality assurance. Prior to his tenure at Harmonics, Mike was VP of Operations for
Vitalink Communication, responsible for all manufacturing activities.
Doug Combs
Vice President, Network Architecture and Field Services
Combs joined Aurora Networks with over 18 years experience in the
communications industry. His extensive background in the design of
communication networks includes two years with AT&T Broadband
Corporate Engineering, five years at TCI Corporate Engineering,
five years with TCI State and Regional Engineering and over six years
in outside plant construction and operations.
John Dahlquist
Vice President, Marketing
Dahlquist has over 15 years experience in product development, operations
and marketing management for broadband communications products and
services. Before joining Aurora Networks, he was Harmonic Inc's Vice President
of Marketing for more than seven years. He earlier served several
years as Vice President of Marketing for Philips Broadband Networks, and,
before that, was Director of European Cable Operations and then Director
of International Business Programs for General Insrument Corporation (now
Motorola Broadband). In addition to a distinguished career in marketing,
he has a solid technical background in technical support and product
development engineering. Dahlquist is a widely acknowledged industry expert,
having made numerous presentations at major cable television and
communication exhibitions and symposiums around the world.
Michael Sparkman
Vice President, Worldwide Sales
Sparkman is responsible for leading Aurora sales operations in North America
and throughout the world. Before joining Aurora Networks, he founded and
served as the president of Broadband Services Inc. (BSI), a global provider
of asset management, logistics, installation and repair services serving the
cable telecommunications industry. Sparkman has more than 25 years of cable
industry experience, including 17 years at ANTEC (now ARRIS), where he held
several executive posts including senior vice president of international
operations and senior vice president of sales for the company’s network
transmission division. In 1997, he was appointed CEO of Itochu Cable Services,
a division of Itochu Corporation. Leading trade publications have published
technical articles authored by Sparkman, and he has spoken at several industry
technology events, including Kagan Broadband Summit and the SCTE’s Emerging
Technologies Conference.
Market Drivers and Focus
Over the next four to five years, bandwidth-intensive services
such as Video-On-Demand, ultra high-speed data, Voice-over-IP and Interactive
TV are expected to become the dominant revenue generating services for MSOs.
To meet this network capacity demand, Aurora Networks’ products are targeted
to support architectures providing unparalleled bandwidth to each subscriber
with speed, reliability and cost savings, while maintaining backward compatiblity
with existing HFC networks. By doing so, our products and architectures provide
an optimal migration path to future network architectures, including Fiber on
Demand™, Fiber to the Home (FTTH) and/or Fiber to the Business (FTTB).
In addition, our patented integrated digital technology enables MSOs to address
the lucrative business-to-business Ethernet services market with dedicated,
symmetrical ultra high-speed data (30 to 100 Mbps) at a very low incremental
cost, significantly increasing their market opportunities.
The Architecture
To meet the bandwidth appetite of these services, Aurora Networks’
Passive HFC Architecture and products enable MSOs to drive fiber deeper into
their networks, enhancing today's traditional HFC architectures (a node plus
four to six amplifiers) with fiber deep passive HFC architectures (a node with
none or one amplifier) by subdividing the typical HFC node service area into
fiber serving areas of 80-100 homes. The optical node locations are optimized
to eliminate active components such as all RF amplifiers and most power supplies.
This architecture dramatically increases both network reliability and the bandwidth
available to each subscriber at construction costs similar to those of traditional
HFC networks, but with significantly lower operating and maintenance expenses.
And as mentioned above, Aurora’s Passive HFC architecture provides an ideal platform
to migrate from to FTTH and FTTB as they become cost effective to deploy in support
of the IP evolution.
The Technology
Aurora Networks has been awarded many patents as it pioneered the
development of Fiber Deep architectures and the products that optimize the
architectures’ deployment. Services are typically delivered to subscribers via a
combination of 1550nm broadcast and narrowcast DWDM technology. Return subscriber
signals are digitized at the node and multiplexed with Ethernet traffic from
business customers for transport at 1310nm, CWDM, or DWDM. In the return transport
network, the nodes are linked together in a daisy-chain configuration that shares
a common digital return transmission channel. This daisy-chain configuration enables
the concatenation of all digitized signals from each node of the chain into a common
return transmission channel for conversion to a DWDM or CWDM wavelength, if required,
and transport from the last node in the chain to the hub. At the hub, all of the DWDM
wavelengths are multiplexed together for transmission to the headend.
Aurora Networks’ patented digital reverse technology, besides being a
key component in our Passive HFC architecture, also enables Aurora’s Fiber on Demand™
solutions that provide cable operators a cost effective tool for offering FTTH to their
subscribers today at a small incremental cost per subscriber. And Aurora’s continuing
product innovation is further reflected in our complete line of 1 GHz bandwidth products
and new transmitter technologies.
Staff and Facilities
Aurora Networks currently has approximately 90 employees at its
30,000 square foot facility in Santa Clara, California.
Press Contact
John Dahlquist
Vice President of Marketing
Aurora Networks
408.235.7033
jdahlquist@aurora.com
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