Do Your DAS Funding Due Diligence

Posted by on June 18th, 2013 | 1 Comment »
Category: Broadband, Coverage and capacity, Enterprise, Industry Trends, Intelligent Buildings, LTE, RF Solutions, Training, Wireless


Every day, it is becoming more common for enterprise IT departments—including those at colleges and universities—to get requests or instructions to improve the wireless coverage in and around their facilities.

The first challenge that such an IT department will face is the need to understand a new set of equipment and technologies, including how they will coexist with current infrastructure.

Once the technical aspects are well understood, plus the context aspects of integrators and wireless operators likely being involved, the IT team will face a significant challenge—the funding. Continue Reading →

Faster is always going to be better

Posted by on June 17th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Broadband, Products/Solutions


Consider the following typical scenario. Mom and Dad are in the family room after dinner. Mom is using video on-demand to catch up with TV programs she’s recently missed while paying household bills using on-line banking. Dad is on his tablet checking sports scores and the stock market while returning emails. The kids are in their rooms watching cartoons on Netflix and gaming with friends. Take that typical scenario; multiply it by every household in the neighborhood and then the town.
The cumulative result is a lot of demand for bandwidth and data speed being placed on the regional broadband service provider. Continue Reading →

Wind Power Made In the USA

Posted by on June 13th, 2013 | 1 Comment »
Category: Broadband, Products/Solutions, Uncategorized


I think it is safe to say that “going green” is not a fad. More and more companies are changing their ways and adopting green policies. Many companies are working hard on reducing their carbon footprint or their reliance on energy.

There’s no question that green initiatives are a major topic of discussion in today’s world. While some companies try to reduce their energy usage, there is no doubt that energy will always be needed; however, the world is looking to harness energy in other ways.

One such way is using wind power. Right now in the United States, wind power is rising to the historic levels we saw in 2011 and early 2012 because of the federal tax-credit extension announced by U.S. Congress in January. Continue Reading →

The Certified Ones

Posted by on June 12th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Coverage and capacity, Enterprise, Industry Trends, Wireless


As a consumer, I like to have certified professionals in my corner when I need help with important issues.

When my automobile has a problem, I take it to a certified mechanic. When I need solid advice on money matters, I trust a certified financial planner to point me in the right direction.

For legal matters, I use a board certified lawyer. When an issue is really important to me, I seek the help of individuals that have met special qualification levels within their field—the certified ones.

The same is true in the world of communications. Companies like Cisco, IBM and CommScope have certification programs to validate the skills of individuals and organizations in the latest technologies and solutions. At the CommScope Infrastructure Academy, we train and certify individuals and organizations in broadband, enterprise and wireless technologies and solutions. Through a comprehensive selection of courses, we provide in-depth training on today’s advanced infrastructure solutions and recognize those individuals and organizations that have met our rigorous standards. We believe in quality through qualification. Continue Reading →

How Wireless Operators Can Stay Ahead of Capacity Squeeze

Posted by on June 11th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Coverage and capacity, Events, Innovations, LTE, Products/Solutions, Wireless


The capacity crunch faced by wireless operators is old news already, but that doesn’t mean the problem is going away any time soon. Our mobile society and its love for bandwidth-heavy data ensures that networks will struggle to keep up with prolific demand, especially in LTE environments.

With capacity issues at the forefront, we’re hearing two primary questions from network operators today:

  • How do I get more capacity out of my existing technology and spectrum assets?
  • How do I seamlessly introduce new technologies, such as small cells, to my existing network in order to increase capacity? Continue Reading →

The Statistics and Physics of Reliability

Posted by on June 10th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Innovations, Products/Solutions, Training, Wireless


Editor’s Note: This is the seventh installment for our “Meet the RF Experts” series in which contributors to the Understanding the RF Path e-book elaborate on subjects in their areas of expertise.


Reliability is often defined as the probability that a product or service will work as needed for a certain time and under certain operating conditions. Like other performance features, reliability is “designed-in” to products to meet needs. But unlike other features, reliability describes future performance and how it changes over time and varies with use conditions. What is often not understood is that only past reliability can be measured.  Future reliability must be predicted by considering issues like:

  1. Does a product or service work where and how it will be used?
  2. How often will it fail and, when it does, will it be repaired or replaced?
  3. How does it fail and what happens when it does?
  4. How long can it last until it has to be replaced? Continue Reading →

CCAP—A Journey to the Center of Convergence

Posted by on June 6th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Broadband, Events, Products/Solutions



Today, cable operators face an uphill battle meeting the demands of converging streams of video, both in an MPEG and data format.

Market forces that require operators to combine and deliver multiple formats, multiple platforms, and personal and interactive videos to subscribers are driving these changes.

For example, by the end of this year video is expected to be almost 90 percent of consumer Internet traffic, which will drive data QAMs (quadrature amplitude modulation). Continue Reading →

Preventing PIM

Posted by on June 5th, 2013 | 2 Comments »
Category: Innovations, LTE, Products/Solutions, Wireless


PIM (Passive Intermodulation) is just as much a concern today as ever in the wireless marketplace. Operators know that PIM can have a devastating impact on high speed data performance, in particular, seriously reducing the site coverage area for high speed services. For example, a 9 dB increase in PIM can reduce the area of high speed coverage by over 60 percent.

CommScope is committed to helping operators manage and limit PIM interference in their networks. We launched a comprehensive PIM Happens—Just Not On Our Watch program two years ago, which bundles together all sorts of information and tools about PIM for network engineers. We recommend a five-prong approach for mitigating PIM based on awareness, prevention, identification, resolution, and support. If you would like to learn more about the entire PIM Happens program, use the link above.

I would like to highlight a free resource that works well as part of the prevention part of the program—the Band and Block PIM Calculator.

Continue Reading →

Hydrogen – Powering the Future

Posted by on June 3rd, 2013 | 2 Comments »
Category: Data Centers, Enterprise, Industry Trends, Products/Solutions


Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a series in which contributors elaborate on each of the five game-changes featured in CommScope’s latest Global Enterprise Survey.

 The world today is predominantly powered by fossil-based fuels including petroleum and refined derivates such as gasoline. Nuclear power plants are also deployed in more developed nations; a hybrid of coal and nuclear powered plants feed those national electric grids and drive the economies.

However, the need for cleaner power is focusing our drive and transition towards non-fossil eco-friendly fuels for the future. This holds true, as well, in powering enterprise networks. It is no surprise to see green, reliable power as one of the top five trends and technologies mentioned in our survey of enterprise IT managers.

One leading solution for a greener future is hydrogen. Hydrogen inherently poses less danger than conventional fuels, such as gasoline or natural gas. Hydrogen is colorless, odorless, non-toxic and will not contaminate groundwater. If released into the air, it will not contribute to atmospheric pollution. Hydrogen is 14 times lighter than oxygen, which means it diffuses rapidly into a non-flammable concentration when released into the air.

Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe. In nature, hydrogen is always combined into molecules with other elements, typically oxygen and carbon. Hydrogen can be extracted from virtually any hydrogen-containing compound including both renewable and non-renewable resources. Hydrogen fuel cells utilize hydrogen as fuel with no polluting emissions, making hydrogen the ultimate clean energy.

We easily recognize the two gases Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O) in the formula H2O (water) as the source of super eco-friendly fuel for all life on earth.

Hydrogen needs oxygen to burn, making combustion within a hydrogen tank impossible. In the event of a leak, the physical properties of hydrogen would force the gas to quickly diffuse and rise, moving the gas away from the leak.

Gasoline and natural gas can be explosive at low concentrations whereas hydrogen requires a much higher concentration that it is less likely to reach due to its lightness, rapid diffusion rate and an ignition temperature of 560OC.

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)

The Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is an electro-chemical device that uses hydrogen combined with oxygen from the air to produce electricity and heat to sustain continuous power.

Continue Reading →

To CCAP or not to CCAP, That is the Question

Posted by on May 30th, 2013 | No Comments »
Category: Broadband, Events, Innovations


Today’s video ecosystem is divided into three segments—create, distribute and monetize. Examples of the players within these three segments are:

  • Create: ESPN, ABC, You Tube, BBC and TVN
  • Distribute: cable MSOs, telcos and wireless carriers, Amazon, Tivo, Roku and Netflix
  • Monetize: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Google and Netflix

In addition, we are beginning to see players such as Netflix play across more than one category.

The video distribution market today is not akin to anything we have seen in the past. I don’t believe there has been a technology or cultural movement with as much change as what we are witnessing today. Why is that? It is because today you have the choice of watching programs live, pulling it from the cloud, watching it at home, viewing on your mobile device, or all of the above.

With consumers demanding more content on more screens, cable operators are seeking a cost-effective strategy for migrating from conventional MPEG-based video delivery to IP video transport. The Converged Cable Access Platform (CCAP) was designed with this goal in mind, and proposes to combine data and video delivery as a first step on the migration path.

Continue Reading →

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