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From the producers of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine (CI&M - cablinginstall.com), this podcast pulls together current industry news, interviews and features from around the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) cabling and connectivity sphere. For 28 years, CI&M has provided useful, practical information to professionals responsible for the specification, design, installation and management of structured cabling systems serving enterprise, data center and other environments. These professionals are challenged to stay informed of constantly evolving standards, system-design and installation approaches, product and system capabilities, technologies, as well as applications that rely on high-performance structured cabling systems. Learn more at www.cablinginstall.com.
Episodes
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Kam Patel, CommScope, Part 2: No data center slowdown; Data center fiber reach
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
In this 2-part episode of the Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance senior editor Matt Vincent chats with Kam Patel, director of hyperscale and service provider data center solutions for CommScope. Patel has been with CommScope for more than 20 years in a variety of business development, engineering, marketing, operations, product management and strategy roles, and is the author of numerous articles, white papers, and presentations on the design of telecommunications and data networks. He holds more than 20 patents for network equipment.
Part 2 of the podcast kicks off with the following question for Patel from CI&M:
"The world is arriving at what we might call a post-pandemic reality. Every week we hear about technology companies that overstaffed and are now scaling back their workforces as they figure out what their right size is. And even though this is happening in places, we don’t get a sense that the flow of information—through entertainment, commerce, gaming, or business communication—is letting up. So while we hear about a big-tech slowdown, I’m betting there’s no slowing down within the data centers of large-scale tech providers. Is that a correct assessment?"
In response, Patel expands upon how A.I. is driving the expansion of data centers on several fronts, along with other factors that he said should keep the data center deployment market moving.
CI&M also inquires if and how Industry 4.0 is expected to accelerate design cycles, and how the technology will be used to transform businesses.
Another question from CI&M posed to Patel in Part Two is as follows:
"People may not intuitively connect the United States’ rural broadband access initiatives to data centers. But CI&M believes data centers will play an essential role in rural connectivity over the next several years. Can you paint a picture for us of how data centers fit into the country’s ambitious plans to provide broadband to so many of its homes?"
In response to this and other questions, Part Two concludes with a discussion about factors driving the need for increased fiber density in the data center, and what user types—hyperscales, telcos, or others—are most likely to need such high-density connections.
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Kam Patel, CommScope, Part 1: Industry 4.0 and AI frontiers; SPE, 5G edge discussion
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
In this 2-part episode of the Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance senior editor Matt Vincent chats with Kam Patel, director of hyperscale and service provider data center solutions for CommScope. Patel has been with CommScope for more than 20 years in a variety of business development, engineering, marketing, operations, product management and strategy roles, and is the author of numerous articles, white papers, and presentations on the design of telecommunications and data networks. He holds more than 20 patents for network equipment.
Part 1 of the podcast begins by referencing Patel and CommScope's technology-inclusive vision for Industry 4.0 as laid out in a recent blog, where Patel writes:
"Whereas the three preceding industry disruptions focused on making the production process faster and more efficient, the fourth Industrial Revolution is about connecting people, information and processes. As such, it has the potential to radically alter not just the business of manufacturing, but how enterprises of all kinds operate....Whereas the third Industrial Revolution was defined by widespread digitalization (the rise of computers, process logic controllers, etc.), the fourth Industrial Revolution is all about fusing digital, physical and virtual resources to create intelligent processes that think, do and respond faster and more accurately than humans alone can. The fourth Industrial Revolution is a way of describing the blurring of boundaries between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. It’s a fusion of advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, IoT, 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies."
In the podcast, CI&M asks Patel to address how this thesis expands the outlook for ICT technicians on the ground integrating Industry 4.0 and A.I. systems technologies in plant manufacturing, and also now into commercial enterprises and smart building sites. In response, Patel emphasizes how, "With Industry 4.0, if we combine all the things that we're talking about such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, quantum computing, etc. -- it allows machines to be able to talk to machines." He continued, "Machines talking and A.I., all such things are highly latency dependent. Communications between machines and robotics are highly latency driven."
Later in Part One, Patel discusses what cloud computing does to "enable industry 4.0 in a more meaningful way," and addresses the apportioning of wired technologies such as Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) vs. wireless technolgies such as 5G in Industry 4.0 deployments. "5G has come around, and that's certainly a low latency application," notes Patel, while adding that, "One 5G application is for cell phones [and] it's not the best application. What 5G was really designed for was capacity and latency."
Friday Jan 27, 2023
CableLabs’ VP of Wired Technologies, Curtis Knittle - Part 2
Friday Jan 27, 2023
Friday Jan 27, 2023
This month's Cabling Podcast brings you an in-depth, 2-part interview with Dr. Curtis Knittle, Vice President of Wired Technologies at CableLabs.
As VP of Wired Technologies at CableLabs, the non-profit research and development lab funded by the global cable industry, Knittle and his team are responsible for specifying scalable deployment solutions in both hybrid fiber-coax and all-fiber access networks for CableLabs’ member companies. DOCSIS technologies, Distributed CCAP Architectures, Point-to-Point Coherent Optics, and Coherent Passive Optical Networking are a few current high-priority projects under his leadership. Knittle holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, and a Master's and Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.
On the mike conducting a sit-down interview on behalf of sibling Endeavor Business Media publication Broadband Technology Report (BTR), in Part 2 of the discussion senior editor Matt Vincent inquires about CableLabs standards and specifications. Ensuring interoperability and developing standards is paramount so that hardware and software produced by different vendors will work together and networks can easily share information. Knittle comments on how CableLabs and its subsidiary, SCTE, have submitted several specifications that are now published as international standards. These advancements free vendors to innovate on the modules placed into fiber nodes, support the rollout of DOCSIS 4.0 technology and cement it as an international standard.
In keeping with "spec talk," Knittle next is asked to describe and recap the finer points of the recent Point-to-Point Coherent Optics (P2PCO) validation, where CableLabs confirmed the interoperability and performance of its P2PCO PHYv2.0 specification, which supports the speed and higher capacity infrastructure necessary to deliver 10G.
Finally, Knittle describes the industry response to CableLabs' 10G Challenge and 5G Challenge events last year. For the 10G Challenge, CableLabs, on behalf of the cable industry, organized and executed a first-of-its-kind technology competition aimed to encourage innovators to develop applications that work on the near-future 10G network. The winning technologies focused on utilizing the improved speed, security, reliability and low latency of the 10G network to enhance how we live, work, learn and play. The six winning ideas illustrated substantial real-world use cases for the technology.
Meanwhile in 2022, CableLabs also served as the host laboratory for the 5G Challenge, presented by NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences in collaboration with the Department of Defense. To close out the interview, Knittle addresses how CableLabs provided the standalone 5G network on its 10G lab platform and engineering capability to integrate multiple 5G O-RAN vendors focusing on conformance, interoperability and performance metrics on-site.
Friday Jan 27, 2023
CableLabs’ VP of Wired Technologies, Curtis Knittle - Part 1
Friday Jan 27, 2023
Friday Jan 27, 2023
This month's Cabling Podcast brings you an in-depth, 2-part interview with Dr. Curtis Knittle, Vice President of Wired Technologies at CableLabs.
As VP of Wired Technologies at CableLabs, the non-profit research and development lab funded by the global cable industry, Knittle and his team are responsible for specifying scalable deployment solutions in both hybrid fiber-coax and all-fiber access networks for CableLabs’ member companies. DOCSIS technologies, Distributed CCAP Architectures, Point-to-Point Coherent Optics, and Coherent Passive Optical Networking are a few current high-priority projects under his leadership. Knittle holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Mexico, and a Master's and Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.
On the mike conducting a sit-down interview on behalf of sibling Endeavor Business Media publication Broadband Technology Report (BTR), in Part 1 of the discussion senior editor Matt Vincent inquires about industry feedback from last year's CableLabs 10G Showcase and Convergence Proof-of-Concept demonstrations, and wonders what further demonstrations might be on deck in 2023.
The CableLabs 10G Showcase highlighted the capability of DOCSIS 4.0 technology to support 9 Gbps downstream capacity and 6 Gbps upstream capacity, as demonstrated by multiple operators and supporting equipment providers at the showcase. For its Convergence Proof-of-Concept demonstration, at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2022, CableLabs demonstrated network-as-a-platform concepts and the power of a converged network running on virtualized infrastructure to improve scalability and reliability as part of the CableLabs 10G Lab initiative. This confirmed the ability to use the same application interface to temporarily increase a customer’s network speed, regardless of the type of network (e.g., DOCSIS technology, PON or wireless.)
Next on the docket, Knittle addresses how last year CableLabs and its subsidiary, Kyrio, with support from Comcast, Apple and Google, organized a groundbreaking interoperability event to test and refine implementations and demonstrate Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) technology applications. Questions from include: How did confirmation of successful interoperability lay the groundwork for the goal of a 10G-powered metaverse? And how much closer to this goal will we be in 2023?
Friday Dec 16, 2022
General Dynamics IT (GDIT) forms government 5G, edge technology coalition
Friday Dec 16, 2022
Friday Dec 16, 2022
The Cabling Podcast recently sat down with Rob Smallwood, vice president of digital modernization, and Shuaib Porjosh, director for advanced wireless, for General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), a business unit of General Dynamics (NYSE:GD), to learn more about GDIT's recently announced formation of a coalition with leading U.S. technology and telecommunications conglomerates.
Including the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco, Dell Technologies, Splunk and T-Mobile, the GDIT coalition's mandate is to accelerate the adoption of 5G advanced wireless and edge technologies across government agencies.
During the interview, Smallwood and Porjosh describe GDIT's foundational Advanced Wireless Emerge Lab and how it operates. We learn how the GDIT coalition is developing technology solutions that will support federal, state and local agencies' unique mission requirements from the enterprise to the edge in a wide variety of applications, including military, logistics and supply chain, healthcare, education and smart infrastructure.
In the podcast, CI&M probes the background of the GDIT coalition's development, and asks whether uniform adoption of 5G and edge technologies has been a challenge in government facilities, or whether the advancements in AI/sensor tech for buildings are such that a technology coalition such as GDIT is now required for federal customers.
CI&M also inquires to what degree the coalition could be involved in physical deployment, installation, maintenance, and monitoring of developed technology solutions, and what the roadmap will be for the rollout of technology solutions developed by the GDIT coalition.
Friday Nov 11, 2022
Fiber Endface Cleaning Imperatives with MicroCare’s Liam Taylor
Friday Nov 11, 2022
Friday Nov 11, 2022
Liam Taylor is European business manager, fiber optics, at Microcare, LLC, global manufacturer of the Sticklers brand of specialist fiber-optic cleaning tools. A long-time participant in information and communications technology (ICT) industry, Taylor is a member of the IES/SC 86B Working Group 4.
In the latest episode of the Cabling Podcast, Taylor recaps and expands upon the salient points of his recent article for Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine, "Why fiber network cleaning is essential to colocation space success."
In the course of the discussion, Taylor and CI&M senior editor Matt Vincent also unpack the features and benefits of Sticklers' newly introduced "breakthrough" fiber-optic cleaning tool, the Pro360 Touchless Cleaner.
Designed to quickly and completely clean oils and dust across the entire endface of both male and female fiber-optic connector ends via a single push of a button, MicroCare contends that its Pro360 Touchless Cleaner stands to change the way fiber-optic technicians work, significantly improving fiber cleaning speed and effectiveness.
"Regardless of where a connector is along the network, contamination always has been and always will be the number one threat to network performance," asserts MicroCare's Taylor. "It's also the cheapest and easiest to prevent."
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
CWA Fiber Training Apprenticeship Program: Yonah Camacho Diamond, CWA District 9
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
Tuesday Oct 25, 2022
In this episode of the Cabling Podcast, CI&M senior editor Matt Vincent sits down with Yonah Camacho Diamond, Organizing Coordinator for Communications Workers of America District 9 (CWA District 9) in California to discuss the award of a $5.8 million grant to expand an apprenticeship training program for fiber technicians at the existing CWA training center in San Jose, and at three additional sites across the state. The new program designation for fiber splicing technicians is intended to support the state's federally funded fiber broadband rollout expansion, as part of the BEAD Program. The grant will offer an employer boot camp program as a recruiting tool, where prospective employers can experience the apprenticeship program. CWA is also pursuing funding to reimburse employers for apprentice wages and benefits, and is assisting with providing tools and PPE for program participants.
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
CI&M talks with Francois Menard, PulR Technologies
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
Thursday Aug 04, 2022
In this episode of the Cabling Podcast, Cabling Installation & Maintenance senior editor Matt Vincent sits down with Francois Menard, founder of PulR Technologies. Francois is the inventor of the PulR, a versatile tool especially designed to solve the problem of pulling bend insensitive, self bend limiting 4.8 mm SC fiber-optic patch cords for small-conduit optical FTTx applications, and other pre-terminated patch cords. The tool will be featured at this year's BICSI Fall Conference (Sept. 25-29) in Las Vegas.
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Drilling Down On Category 6A with CommScope’s Jason Bautista
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Friday Jul 08, 2022
Cabling Installation & Maintenance recently sat down with CommScope Enterprise Solutions Architect Jason Bautista for a discussion of the finer points of Category 6A connectivity. Cat 6A has been a cabling standard since 2009, but what are the signature contemporary advancements in terms of compatible products and applications, and also the thinking surrounding the technology? Our discussion then touches on the different use cases for Cat 6A shielded vs. Cat 6A unshielded cabling, and what the upper limit of Cat 6A might be in terms of future bandwidth speed and distance. Also on the docket: Notes on the use of Cat 7 and above media in lieu of Cat 6A.
Friday May 13, 2022
The Cabling Podcast - Spring 2022 Edition
Friday May 13, 2022
Friday May 13, 2022
Cabling Installation & Maintenance (CI&M) editors Matt Vincent and Patrick McLaughlin chat about information and communications technology (ICT) segment prospects and news and notes for CI&M within the Spring 2022 timeframe.