DIPOL Weekly Review - TV and SAT TV, CCTV, WLAN

DIPOL's Christmas Tree
DIPOL's Cherub

The next issue will be published on January 4, 2010.

The world focuses on optical networks, Europe develops strategies. In 2007, the number of FTTH/FTTB (Fiber To The Home/Building) users was about 16 million. In 2008, the number increased by over 30%, this year it is expected to grow by 40%! The FTTH/FTTB services have most subscribers in Asia. In 2008 the percentage was 78%. The European market is only 5% of the global market.
Analysts estimate that by the end of 2011 year approximately 16 million homes in Europe will be connected to FTTH/FTTB - it will be about 8% of all dwellings. This "ambitious" plan contrasts with the results which were achieved in the end of 2008 in Asian countries: South Korea - 45%, Japan - 25%, Taiwan - 12%.
FTTH saturation at a level higher than 1% was also in Sweden, Norway, Slovenia, the USA, Iceland, Denmark, Andorra, Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, Lithuania, China, Italy, Estonia, Russia, Latvia. It is interesting that the list does not include Germany, France, and Great Britain. A bold policy aimed at quick development of optical networks is conducted by Slovakia which this year entered the group of 20 countries with the most developed infrastructure of this kind.
The penetration of FTTH/FTTB on the U.S. market is about 5%, and the most popular FTTH service is FIOS (Fiber Optic Service). Verizon, the operator of FIOS, has about 3 million subscribers.
In China, the FTTH/FTTB share is 1.9%. However, the pace of growth is so fast (about 80% per year) that the report issued by FTTH Councils of Asia-Pacific announces Chinese leadership in the number of installed FTTH/FTTB within two years.

(Based on reports of Dell'Oro Group and Ranking of European Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) September 2009)

Architecture of FTTx systems
(source: Wikipedia)

In Asia and the U.S., the development of telecommunications infrastructure is one of the most important elements in overcoming the crisis. In Europe, the need for progress in modern technologies was alreadyrecognized in 2000, when the Lisbon Strategy emerged. The aim of the plan was to make the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, and respect for the environment by 2010". The implied meaning was to overtake the USA. Unfortunately, Europeans have not managed to overtake Americans, but in many fields have been overtaken by Asian countries...
It stimulates Europeans to step up their efforts for the new strategy "EU 2020", which will replace the existing 2010 EU agenda for growth and jobs (Lisbon Strategy). The basic premise of this project is "more intelligent and ecological, knowledge-based market economy".
The European Commission launched a consultation on the new strategy, waiting for comments and suggestions sent by e-mails to EU2020@ec.europa.eu till January 15, 2010. On this basis, the EC will develop detailed proposals and present them for approval to the heads of states and governments during the summit in March 2010.

Admittedly, the optical infrastructure will not grow from the wide-ranging consultations, but the new strategy will be at least a bright vision of the future.

What do you think about it, Kenzo Tange? Wireless communication systems require the installation of antennas. Tall buildings are the most suitable places for this purpose, their managers usually decide to install such equipment on the roofs. This way the antennas do not interfere with the architecture of the buildings, are less visible.
It is rare to place antennas on the facades, especially in the case of prestigious buildings designed by famous architects.
The building shown in the pictures below is one of the exceptions. What is this building? Where is it? Why Kenzo Tange should issue an opinion on this subject? - You can check out the answers at the end of this page.

Advantages of fiber optic cables. Growing interest in FTTx systems is associated with lowering costs of fiber optic cables and the rest of the equipment, whereas the tendency in copper prices is just opposite. In addition, optical fibers have much better transmission performance than the traditional signal cables made of copper. Light signals can be transmitted over long distances due to very low attenuation of the fibers.

The comparison of the characteristics of fiber optic and copper cables is shown in the following table:

As the table shows, the use of fiber optics can bring enormous benefits. The only problem might be with fusion splicing of the fibers, however today's fusion splicers do not require to use microscopes for manual centering of cores, but they employ cameras and monitors, and the adjustment is performed automatically.

Typical and maximum attenuation of optical fibers as well as minimum bandwidth-distance product of multimode optical fibers is shown in the following table:

The minimum bandwidth-distance product - MHz*km - expresses the trade off between the bandwidth of the signal and the distance over which it can be carried in a multimode optical fiber. It is caused by the effect of dispersion, not taking place in the case of single-mode fibers.

The cheapest combo receiver on the market - Opticum HD TS 9600. DIPOL company has expanded the range of DVB receivers by the new two-tuner combo receiver Opticum TS 9600 A99438. It allows to receive both digital satellite broadcasts (DVB-S/S2) and terrestrial DVB-T signals.
The receiver has two smart card readers in Conax system and two Common Interface slots for CAM modules.

Opticum HD TS 9600
A99438

PVR (Personal Video Recorder) function enables the user to record audio-video content (also HD) on external data storage devices, such as flash or hard drives. Time Shift function, also using the external memory, allows to watch a program a little later (up to one hour) and skip commercials. Other interesting functions of the receiver include software support for Unicable technology (one-cable distribution of satellite signals to up to four receivers), and possibility of using an external IR sensor.

How to choose the lens? Choosing the correct type of lens is just as important as choosing the camera. Poor quality of the lens can significantly reduce the overall quality of the camera point. When choosing a lens, first of all one should pay attention to the viewing angle (or the focal length) and the kind of iris and focal length control.

Viewing angle:

Kind of iris:

Kind of focal length control

New ACTi cameras - small size, great strength. New IP cameras from ACTi combine the highest quality and greatest strength with the smallest size.
The VGA camera ACM-3601 K1316 and 1.3 Mpix camera ACM-3701 K1317 have all the possibilities already known from the earlier models, so their configuration is identical. They support MPEG4 and MJPEG compression, up to 30 fps (the VGA model) and 8 fps (the 1.3 Mpix model at full resolution). They are powered using PoE technology, via UTP/FTP cable which transmits both the data and supplying voltage of 48 VDC.

The main distinguishing features of the cameras are: robust, vandal-proof housing with IP66 class, operating temperature range from -20^oC to 50^oC, resistance to shock and vibration. They ensure proper operation under toughest conditions. And all this in a housing with a diameter of 10 cm!

Environmental testing of the new ACTi camera

A problem with coverage? Let's use GSM repeater. The requirement of the the investor, DSS Polska, was to strengthen the signal of one of the GSM operators in the office in Krakow city center. The task was undertaken by TELEAUDYT company installing and modernizing telecommunications infrastructure as well as installing IP video surveillance systems.

The installation required to carry out measurements of signal levels due to the close location of the transmitter of another cellular network. After the measurements, the company installed suitable external antenna. Due to the required angle of wave propagation and aesthetic demands, the chosen antenna was TRANS-DATA GSM/DCS/UMTS KPV7.5/10 A741020.

View of the installed outdoor antenna
TRANS-DATA KPV7.5/10 A741020

The room to be covered by the amplified signal has the area of 350 m² and is located in the basement of the building. Due to this area, the TELEAUDYT company chose the repeater SIGNAL GSM-300 A6760. Because of the layout of the office room (open-space area without partitions), it was enough to use only one indoor antenna (supplied with the Signal GSM-300 A6760).

Signal GSM-300
A6760

Basic diagram of the installation with the GSM repeater A6760

The measurements performed in the room after completion of the installation showed 100% coverage with the signal of the operator. The investor is completely satisfied with the system performance.

The list of installation components:

We encourage you to describe your implementations.
The TELEAUDYT company receives "Chameleon mug".

How to get "Chameleon mug"?

Correction:
In the DIPOL Weekly Review No. 42 we published incorrect wiring diagram of the "crossover" cable. The current version of the page is correct.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. City hall of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. The building with the height of 243 m had been the highest one in Tokyo from 1991 to 2006, the year when it was "outgrown" by Tokyo Midtown (248 m).
The building was designed by renowned Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. Some people associate the architecture of Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building with a Gothic cathedral, others think it is a giant representation of a microprocessor.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to get the opinion of Kenzo Tange on the antennas on the facade - he died in 2005.

We have written about:

Recording features of NUUO NVR mini. Network Video Recorders NUUO K4104 and K4108 enable full management of IP CCTV systems.
Despite small size, they allow full-speed (25 fps) monitoring and recording of cameras with standard resolution (D1: 720 x 576), as well as synchronized recording of sound channels. The NVRs also allow to record video streams from megapixel cameras (up to 5 Mpix). They can operate in three modes: continuous recording, schedule recording, no recording...


ULTIMAX - DVRs for demanding customers - maps in remote client software. Distributed video surveillance systems and systems with a large number of cameras should enable the operator to easily locate the camera capturing the image, or the sequence of cameras that follow a moving object. Camera names or numbers are in such systems inadequate for effective operation...

Megapixel lenses. One-megapixel camera (1 Mpx - 1,000,000 pixels) provides over twice the pixels than standard PAL camera (704 x 576 = 405 504 pixels). 5 Mpx cameras offer resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels (12.5 times more pixels than PAL and 2.5 times more than HDTV images).
So high resolutions of the sensors require using adequate lenses. Low-quality lenses would spoil the resultant images...

Index of published issues