Everything RF recently interviewed Farzad Ghadooshahy, the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Optical Zonu Corporation. He has over 30 years of experience in research and product development in Fiber Optic and RF/Microwave technologies, playing a key role in the development of innovative optical fiber transceiver modules and system-level products for the company.
Q.What are the core technologies and solutions Optical Zonu specializes in today? Could you walk us through your product portfolio and the problems it’s solving?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: Optical Zonu suite of core technologies includes RF design, optical signal matching, external modulation up to 60 GHz, innovated control architecture and automated testing to ensure high performance and reliability. These capabilities allow us to solve critical challenges in antenna remoting for wireless infrastructure, defense, and SATCOM applications; RF transport for broadband networks; and GNSS timing distribution for synchronization-sensitive systems. Our offerings consist of tightly integrated product families—OZ520, OZ600/Z800, OZ1600, OZ1800, OZ101, and OZ200—which serve as modular building blocks for customized solutions across industries. OZC offers 2 plugin systems J and J3U that offer scalability and unparalleled density. With these standardized, optimized components, Optical Zonu supports a catalog of over 3,000 SKUs, allowing us to deliver scalable, tailored systems that meet complex RFoF demands with precision and efficiency.
Q. For those unfamiliar, what is RF over Fiber (RFoF), and what advantages does it offer over traditional coaxial or wireless RF transmission—especially for high-frequency applications?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: RFoF transmits radio frequency signals over optical fiber rather than traditional coaxial cables or wireless links. RF signals are converted into optical signals, transmitted through fiber, and then converted back to RF at the destination. RFoF offers many advantages, especially for high-frequency and precision applications. It supports longer transmission distances with negligible signal loss, provides exceptional immunity to electromagnetic interference (EMI), and enables wider bandwidth and higher dynamic range than coaxial alternatives. RFoF transport provides lower signal jitter (compared to digital transport) to ensure greater timing accuracy and it is more secure for sensitive communications because it is inherently resilient to passive listening or signal interception. All these characteristics make it ideal defense, SATCOM, wireless infrastructure, and GNSS timing distribution applications which we support.
Q. Can you elaborate on Optical Zonu’s approach to RFoF? How do your solutions stand out in terms of performance, reliability, or flexibility across industries like telecom, aerospace, and defense?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: Optical Zonu takes a holistic, end-to-end approach to RFoF, offering a complete solution beyond just signal transport that includes system-level integration, point of interface signal processing, performance monitoring, and network-scale management through its proprietary network management system (NMS). What sets Optical Zonu apart is its ability to understand customer needs from the full system architecture down to individual components, enabling highly tailored and reliable solutions across demanding industries like telecom, aerospace, and defense. This is important because at the end of the day RFoF is inherently signal transport modality and OZC utilizes it as a problem-solving technology, so it is often deployed in complex environments where new challenges emerge, and it looks different in every application. Our deep expertise in RF engineering, optical transport, and real-world system design ensures superior performance, flexibility, and resilience, whether the application involves secure military communications, precision timing distribution, or large-scale wireless infrastructure.
Q. What are the primary market segments Optical Zonu serves today, and which segments are showing the fastest growth?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: Optical Zonu’s core markets include aerospace and defense (A&D), wireless and cellular infrastructure like base station to DAS connection, GNSS-based timing distribution, and test and measurement support. Among these, aerospace and defense is our fastest-growing segment, driven by increasing demand for both extended range and tethered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications, high-frequency tactical systems, and the need for secure, low-latency RF links. In the commercial sector, Optical Zonu continues to support the expansion of 5G and private cellular networks, while also addressing the need for precise timing distribution in data centers, financial institutions, and critical infrastructure through its advanced GNSS-over-fiber solutions. This broad market reach reflects the company’s ability to adapt its technology to solve complex RF transport challenges across both legacy and emerging applications.
Q. Your GPS-over-Fiber solutions address precise timing challenges in environments like defense bases, data centers, and aircraft hangars. Can you tell us more about these applications and what differentiates your timing distribution systems?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: Optical Zonu offers more than just GPS, we offer GNSS-over-Fiber solutions that are built to deliver highly accurate and reliable timing in applications like military bases, aircraft hangars, and data centers. We support all satellite constellations that transmit timing, including Iridium, which adds extra resilience in environments where jamming or spoofing is a concern. The system design OZC offers protects the signal delivery against any single point of failure (e.g. any element: antenna power supply, cabling, component, etc.). One of our product’s best features is a patented monitoring system that keeps an eye on the antenna connections in real time, ensuring the signal stays strong and consistent from end to end. It’s a solution designed not just to distribute timing, but to make sure it stays accurate, secure, and reliable no matter how demanding the environment.
Q. Can you explain what ZonuConnect is and how it helps connect base stations to Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)? What problem does it solve, and where is it typically used?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: ZonuConnect is Optical Zonu’s solution for connecting wireless base stations to Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) using RFoF technology. It solves a key challenge in modern wireless deployments, which is how to flexibly and efficiently extend high-frequency RF signals from centralized equipment rooms to remote antennas without signal degradation or excessive complexity. A recent project example is a large airport where the wireless services for all 3 US carriers are delivered from a remote concentrated location of the base stations to all terminals parking lots internal operation and customer spaces. What makes ZonuConnect stand out is its dedicated interfaces to the base stations and the DAS as well as scalability and adaptability; it supports evolving band requirements and multi-operator needs, all while minimizing fiber use through advanced techniques like optical division multiplexing — allowing for two sector delivery, each 2×2 MIMO with up to six independent bands and gigabit ethernet (for monitoring and control as well as a service for network connectivity) on a single fiber.
To simplify deployment and long-term maintenance, ZonuConnect includes CloudView NMS, Optical Zonu’s managed RFoF platform, which provides automatic auto-discovery installation settings (simplifies and saves time during deployment), real-time monitoring and control and scales easily across single or multi-site networks. It even integrates our micro-OTDR for built-in fiber link diagnostics, giving operators full visibility into the health of the RF and fiber paths without needing separate test equipment. ZonuConnect is often used in large venues, airports, campuses, and enterprise facilities where maintaining high-performance RF coverage with minimal infrastructure disruption is critical.
Q. Can you tell us what Optical Zonu’s Antenna Remoting for Common Data Link (CDL) systems is all about? What challenges does it address, and how is it used in real-world defense or secure communication applications?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: Optical Zonu’s antenna remoting solution is engineered to overcome the significant limitations of coaxial cables or waveguides in defense communication setups. An interesting example is our deployment on an unmanned Navy ship, where we replaced less reliable Ku‑Band waveguides with RFoF links to support full‑duplex, jamming‑resistant CDL communications between airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and the vessel’s remote terminals.
This antenna remoting setup allows the receiver/transmitter to be located hundreds of feet from the antenna without signal degradation and stay resilient even in harsh environments like the bottom of a ship. Optical fiber eliminates the signal loss, physical bulk, and interference issues typical of waveguides or coax systems. The Navy case demonstrated reliable, secure transport of sensitive Ku‑Band CDL traffic, preserving integrity and performance under demanding military conditions.
Q. There’s been growing interest in RFoF for mmWave radar, electronic warfare (EW), and satellite communications. What’s driving this demand, and how is Optical Zonu meeting the unique technical challenges of these applications?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: The growing demand for RFoF in these applications is being driven by the need for secure, flexible, and high-performance RF transport in environments where coaxial cabling or digital systems fall short. As systems move to higher frequencies and adopt more complex modulation schemes like 256-QAM, transporting RF signals cleanly and with minimal distortion becomes critical. Unlike digital transmission, which requires extensive conversion and processing, RFoF preserves the native analog signal for the transport of wideband, high-fidelity signals with low latency and no jitter and superior spectral integrity. One key metric in these scenarios is Error Vector Magnitude (EVM), which reflects how accurately complex signals are preserved. This is something Optical Zonu’s solutions are engineered to optimize. By focusing on clean transport performance, we help customers deploy RF links that meet the demands of modern defense and aerospace systems.
Q. What is your vision for the RF over Fiber (RFoF) market over the next 3–5 years, particularly in high-frequency applications such as 5G, C-RAN, aerospace, and defense? How is Optical Zonu positioning itself to lead in these evolving segments?
Farzad Ghadooshahy: As wireless systems continue to push into mmWave frequencies and adopt complex analog modulation schemes to maximize spectral efficiency, the need for clean, resilient, and low-latency RF transport is only growing. RFoF offers clear advantages over traditional wireless or coaxial offerings in terms of signal integrity, security, and deployment flexibility, especially in mission-critical and interference-prone environments.
Aerospace and defense in particular are going to be significant for us because of the emerging demands for robust RF links to support tethered drones, unmanned platforms, and advanced electronic warfare systems. These platforms rely on high-fidelity signal transmission over long distances, which is something RFoF is uniquely positioned to deliver. We’re investing heavily in this future by expanding support for higher frequency bands, refining our solutions to handle complex modulation schemes, and delivering scalable, modular systems that meet both current and emerging requirements. Our goal is to remain at the forefront of Roff innovation—offering not just hardware, but complete, integrated solutions that simplify deployment while delivering unmatched performance across industries.