Telecom Valley

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Telecom Valley is an area located in Sonoma County, California specifically the Redwood Business Park of Petaluma, California.

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[edit] History

Don Green is nicknamed the "Father of Telecom Valley". He founded Digital Telephone Systems (DTS) in Novato, California, in 1969, and invented the Digital Loop Carrier (DLC). It was acquired by Farinon, which in turn was acquired by Harris Corporation. In 1987, Optilink Corporation was founded by Don Green, which created a fiber optic Next-Generation Digital Loop Carrier System called the Litespan. Optilink was acquired by DSC and eventually Alcatel.

In local history, two engineers, Jim Hoeck and John Webley, approached Don in the parking lot with an idea for yet another NGDLC, the UMC-1000. This formed the basis of Advanced Fibre Communications, which was subsequently acquired by Tellabs.

There have been numerous spinoffs, acquisitions, and startups in the area, mostly in Petaluma, including: Telenetworks (acquired by Next Level), Diamond Lane Communications (DLC) (acquired by Nokia), Next Level Communications (acquired by General Instruments, then by Motorola), Fibex Systems (acquired by Cisco), Fiberlane (renamed to Cerent, and acquired by Cisco), Mahi Networks (acquired by Meriton Networks), Calix, Turin Networks, Teknovus, as well as others. Some suffered in the post dot-com bust of 2001, but many are still around and a resurgence is now happening. Some companies also have regional offices in Telecom Corridor located in Texas.

[edit] Transportation

[edit] Major Highways

[edit] External links