Podcast: BridgeComm CEO Michael Abad-Santos on optical and quantum tech communications

BridgeComm Chief Executive Michael Abad-Santos is leading the architecture of a global communications infrastructure for an increasingly data-driven future. The optical communications specialist produces laser connectivity and is planning to manufacture and market a new ground-to-space solution using optical links.

“Free space optical communications is an industry that has been able to take advantage of the hundreds of billions of dollars that’s been invested by terrestrial fiber optic companies,” Abad-Santos, chief executive of the Denver-based BridgeComm, tells Connectivity Business News in the latest episode of “The Dish” podcast.

The company, founded in 2015, claims to be the only one offering point-to-multipoint communications utilizing optical wireless communications, wIth $16 million in total investment according to Crunchbase. In April, BridgeComm announced an agreement with X-Lumen to manufacture and market a new ground-to-space solution using optical links.

“It takes a large investment community to bring optical and quantum communications to market as a whole, but it also takes a lot of innovative companies who have driven engineers motivated by big private-sector salaries,” Abad-Santos said. “Government expertise is really good at doing difficult things on a small scale, but for large enterprise scale, private power has shown what it can achieve in tech.”

A former Inmarsat exec with over 20 years in the telecommunications and satellite industry, Abad-Santos has been at BridgeComm since 2019.

Listen to this episode of “The Dish” as he discusses optical technologies, quantum, and the capacity for the private sector to bring risky new ideas to the world.

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