Hands up for fibre to the home
by André Hoffmann, FSAIEE When I see the leafy suburbs and gated communities all putting their hands up for fibre-to-the home, it seems to me that the broadband-demand giant is fast waking from its slumber. I get a sense that this is a similar to 1994 when the first mobile... ( more) |
In conversation with Rob MacKenzie
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EE Publishers I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with Rob MacKenzie, MD of Endress+Hauser. The company opened its doors in South Africa in 1984, having been represented by agents prior to that. The agents had focused mainly on process... ( more) |
 Fibre to the home - as many questions as there are answers
by Hans van de Groenendaal, EE Publishers
Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is slowly taking off in South Africa. There are however as many questions from the sceptics as from the "believers" - perhaps somewhere in the middle there are the realists? We asked a number players in the industry... ( more)
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 Effective, reliable power management is essential
by Marco da Silva, MD, Jasco Power
Clean, stable supply of electricity is essential for businesses in any industry or vertical to be able to continue operating - a challenge for industries in South Africa due to the current energy situation. Irregular supply of energy in South Africa... ( more)
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If you're unsure whether virtualisation is the right step for your business, or what the best way is to go about it, you're not alone. Many thousands of South African companies have no or limited in-house IT staff and must rely on service providers not only to deliver... ( more) |
Contract manufacturing industry needs its own forum
by Hans van de Groenendaaal, EE Publishers
Over the years there have been several attempts to get the electronic contract manufacturing (ECM) industry represented by an organisation to look after the members' interests. Contrary to what many may believe, the contract manufacturing industry has an important role to... (more) |
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How service-oriented drive deployments improve VSD driveline uptime
by Philippe Hampikian, Schneider Electric
How the intelligence in variable speed drives can be leveraged to perform predictive maintenance and improve plant uptime. Variable speed drives (VSDs) were introduced to the market several years ago and have since then proliferated across many industries. Despite their... ( more)
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Making safe waves in hazardous areas
by John Hartley, Extronics
As wireless devices such as mobile phones and laptop computers become more reliable and cost effective, there is growing interest amongst the process industry about the benefits to be found from enabling such devices for hazardous areas. However this is not a simple task... ( more)
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Turning big data into actionable knowledge
by Deon van Aardt, Wonderware Southern Africa
Today, in every aspect of our lives but more particularly in the industrial IT world, big data is all the rage. The old "KB" has been turned into the new "GB" - Microsoft's original and (now) laughable limit of 640 k memory has now been turned into the run-of-the-mill 640... (more)
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Testing test leads for electrical measurement safety
Information from Comtest
Test leads are more than a means to connect your digital multimeter to the unit under test - they're an integral part of the complete measurement system. Poorly made, worn or under-rated test leads can cause inaccurate readings and may pose a serious shock or... (more)
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Recognising and separating signals in spectrograms
Information from Narda Safety Test Solutions, Germany
Spectrograms are generated by representing the level values of the measured spectrums by different colours and displaying them line by line. This produces an image that provides frequency and time information simultaneously. Displaying the results becomes... (more)
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Keys to successful ASIC design
by Dr. Francisco Tejada, DfR Solutions, USA
There are multiple keys to having a successful application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) design cycle. This article presents key elements, showing that at every stage there are important considerations which interact with other stages. Communication between the... (more)
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Fast facts about polymer and hybrid capacitors
Information from Panasonic
Capacitors may seem simple enough, but specifying them has grown more complex in recent years. The reason why comes down to freedom of choice. The universe of capacitors has expanded greatly over the past few years, in large part due to capacitor designs that take advantage of advances in conductive polymers. These advanced components... (more)
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Evolving into multi-dimensional design for all
by Dane Chapman, The CAD Corporation
Charles Darwin once claimed that it was not the strongest nor smartest of a species that survived, it was those most adaptable to change. What is this change? Let's call it technological evolution and let's explore it as a changing process, an evolving process, in a world where the only constants are engineering change... (more)
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The quest for smart cities
by Reshaad Sha and Hugh Sonn, Dark Fibre Africa
There is much hype around smart cities and the benefits it can bring to communities around the world. However, the FTTH Council Smart Cities Committee states that a smart city has to have: a strong and reliable communication network (preferably based on fibre optics); government involvement (to provide added value to the citizens) and... ( more) |
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Increasing data traffic requires full spectral window usage in fibre cables
by Ryan Chappell and Daniel Daems, TE Connectivity
The optical fibre network infrastructures installed today will typically see four generations of transmission systems over the network's expected lifetime. As recent history has shown, the amount of data traffic these networks will carry will increase dramatically and continuously. A completely open spectral transmission window from 1260 nm... (more)
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Fibre to the office - benefits and practical application
Information from Nexans
In this article we will examine fibre to the office (FTTO) technology, its benefits and a practical application featuring 1000 user ports.The number of applications running on networks, and herefore required IP convergence, keeps increasing each year. FTTO provides an ideal basis for the growing flexibility needs... (more)
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Testing parameters for optical fibre cable
by Mike Harrop and Martin Warne, EXFO, Canada
The purpose of testing an optical fibre cable link following installation or before turn-up is to prove that the fibre link and all of its components meet specifications, and that the installation has been carried out as per industry required practices. Test results can reflect that splice comply with specifications, and that cable/link losses... (more)
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Compiled by Aimée Clarke, EE Publishers
- Ivory Coast hosts Mobile Week
- African social ventures encouraged
- Company awarded for African initiatives
- New data centre for Nigeria
- Egyptian telco partners with WFP
- Tanzania to offer bill for telecom infrastructure sharing
- Algerians get mobile service in the metro
- Morocco: The best potential for expansion... (more)
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Amateur radio: Make Space your technology partner
by Hans van de Groenendaaal, president SA AMSAT
"Amateur radio - your ticket to space communication". This appears on the last page just before the index of the first amateur radio satellite handbook authored by Martin Davidoff, K2UBC (published by the ARRL in 1985). He wrote "Amateur radio by its very nature is space communication. Not only do (radio) hams bounce signals... (more)
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