Neopolitan Networks

A network plan asks an investor to believe two things: that customers will pay, and that the network will hold up under their traffic. Neopolitan answered both before it asked for money.

Frank founded Neopolitan Networks in Palo Alto in 2002 and ran it as CEO until 2009, also serving as president of its three subsidiaries and as secretary and director. He built it unfunded from the ground up, and raised nothing until the concept was running with paying customers on critical operations. The $3.17 million Series A closed on a working business, not a forecast.

In July 2006 the Business Journal named him one of its 40 Under 40 Rising Stars. He spoke at CompTel 2003, Broadband Wireless World 2004, Metroconnect USA 2004 and NFOEC 2005.

• Layer 2 gigabit Ethernet over fiber across the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and San Antonio.
• Microwave and fixed wireless to extend the fiber to buildings it did not reach.
• NeoMatrix, linking the metro networks between Miami, New York, San Francisco and London.
• Two colocation sites connected to its own fiber, one of them underground and highly secure.
• Network operations centers built for its own network, then used to run third-party networks on an outsourced basis.
• VoIP phone service and VoIP carrier services.

• Gigabit Ethernet
• Layer 2 metro fiber
• Microwave
• Fixed wireless
• Colocation
• Network operations center
• VoIP

Keyhole's software later became Google Earth. Neopolitan defined 25 functional requirements for that software under a licensing arrangement, then designed and built a Keyhole hosting solution inside the secure underground colocation site. That hosting supported government agencies during the Iraq war. Neopolitan helped Keyhole scale, first for that government work and then ahead of its acquisition by Google. The Palo Alto data center also hosted HeavyMail's servers.

• Hybrid network design. Fiber, microwave and fixed wireless combined to reach the sites that matter.
• Hosting for sensitive workloads. Experience building and running a secure facility for a customer whose users included government agencies in wartime.
• Outsourced network operations. A working model for monitoring and running a network you own but do not want to staff around the clock.
• Capital efficiency. How to get a company to paying customers before the first round, and what investors look for once it has them.