Cable / Telecom News

COMMTECH 2008: Products and Services


KELOWNA – “This show has grown by leaps and bounds,” Capella’s Wayne Rabey raved this morning on a crowded floor at the 2008 Canadian CommTech Show and Seminars.

Between 250 and 300 people went through the Coast Capri Hotel on Wednesday, a day after the event’s successful golf tournament on Tuesday.

While the seminars went on (we’ll have a story or two from those, too) we perused the show floor for products and this is what some of the 60-plus companies were highlighting.
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TVC CANADA was featuring a couple of fibre-to-the-home solutions, including air-blown fibre solutions and Corning’s pre-terminated fibre drops. Both options dramatically reduce the number of fibre splices needed – and therefore limit signal loss. The airblown fibre is a pretty neat way to get fibre into many places because only the tubes which house the fibre are installed and spliced – and then the fibre strands are, well, blown in, so they can be long, uncut fibres, an advantage fir any cable and telecom company.

TVC was also showing its new EMTA (embedded multimedia terminal adapter, i.e., a telephone modem), from Arris, a line it has recently added which used to be offered in Canada by Capella.

www.tvccanada.ca
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TVC took the Arris line from CAPELLA, but they, in turn, have added Motorola, which has departed White Radio’s product list. Capella is now the place for Canadian cable operators who aren’t big guys like Shaw or Cogeco to source Moto set top boxes, CMTS gear, cable modems and EMTAs. “Our focus is on the smaller and mid-size guys,” said Rabey.

www.capella.ca
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At the WHITE RADIO table, they were highlighting the AastraLink Pro 160, a Linux based open-source IP PBX that is aimed at small businesses (25 users and under), which is an area of high interest these days for cable companies and other local telephony newcomers. It’s designed for ease-of-use and quick deployment as is lets users get phones up and running just by plugging into an existing LAN.

www.whiteradio.com
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Around the corner at ARCOM, it was showing off the Bel Air Networks meshed broadband WiFi solution. Used primarily for video surveillance in places like ports and stadiums, the multi-service switch router provides secure, real-time video with low latency and is also useful for cellular backhaul. It provides four radio slots that can contain any combination of backhaul radio modules, WiMAX radio modules and access radio modules (ARMs) in the same wireless mesh node. They support a broad range of Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4.9 Public Safety and cellular applications.

www.arcom.ca
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POWER & TEL was showing a working model of the Haivision Tasman, which is an MPEG4 encoder for IPTV applications, being used with an Amino IPTV set-top box. The company also featured the BTI Photonics Netstender and BTI 7000. These Edge of the network Packet Optical systems integrate both WDM (C/DWDM) transport and Ethernet Switching for the delivery of Gigabit services. Also displayed were the Asoka Pluglan & Pluglink which are commercial and home broadband-over-powerline solutions.

www.ptsupply.com
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EXFO emphasized its new, single-ended FTB-5700 dispersion analyzer. It has a testing range of up to 140 kms and combined CD (chromatic dispersion) and PMD (polarization mode dispersion) measurement in one automated unit. It’s a one-button unit requiring just one technician and no setup. The portable device is 40 Gbit/s-ready, too and is made to dramatically reduce the cost of ownership while speeding up the learning curve and reporting.

www.exfo.com  
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The guys at the ALPHA table were talking up the FlexPoint 1230 fibre to the home powering solution. The 30 watt, 12Vdc standby power supply is an environmentally-hardened standby power supply intended to be placed in indoors or outdoors in sheltered locations and is compact enough to allow placement in densely populated structured enclosures. The FP1230 includes a unique emergency battery reserve function that provides greater lifeline service availability by preserving 25% of the usable battery capacity for user initiated emergency telephone calls. Alpha products are distributed in Canada by TVC Canada and Power & Tel.

www.alpha.com
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CROSSOVER DISTRIBUTION is growing. The eight-month old company, staffed by 13 ex-White Radio employees, has solutions for wireless, telecom, cable television and IP. And it’s attempting to move beyond the traditional Canadian distribution company by landing North American deals, such as its agreement with 3Com. The company’s head office and warehouse is in Mississauga and it also has an office in Surrey, B.C. and is currently looking for a location in New Jersey, says Darin Gibbons, vice-president, sales and marketing. “Together, all of our people have 240 years of experience in the industry,” he added.

www.crossoverdistribution.com
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A popular device at CONNECT TELECOMMUNICATIONS was the Equont Manufacturing FSM-01 fusion splice set. The compact machine is easy to operate and works in a number of languages. It features a large multiple and visible fibre core, a turnover display screen and inner light to set fibre at night. Its splicing time is 10 seconds and heating time, 60 seconds.

www.connect-telcom.com