FEATURE: CABLING STANDARDS
benefits in those environments. If you’re moving into
the hyper-scale environment then single mode is the
choice because of the distances, connections and
speeds required – basically it’s the trade-off between
performance, cost and the installation context.
Although single mode offers greater bandwidth
opportunities across longer distances, in my opinion
multimode is still a very viable choice for end users.
However, it comes back to an informed choice and
working with a company that can advise on the best
approach and has the breadth of portfolio to offer
both options.
Q
How can the energy
efficiency standards of
cabling be judged?
The cabling has a part to play
in this, but again it’s all around
the holistic design. Let’s take a
DC environment. Fibre is now
extremely prevalent within the
DC and we are seeing copper
declining within the data centre –
mostly used now for out of bound management – so
it’s a fibre world. Fibre drives energy efficiency, so
conversely the cabling solution within the data centre
is using less power.
A
On the installation side, it’s about the efficient design
and layout of the infrastructure. For example, taking
care not to impede airflow in a data centre by keeping
cables routed efficiently can greatly enhance the
cooling capacity and efficiency of a data centre.
It also comes down to the efficiency and design of the
equipment and this been a subject of focus in past
years. The EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres has
been a driving influence on this and so have the overall
designs on the power and cooling systems within the
facility – great progress but more to come I believe.
In the building space, using Power over Ethernet
within the copper infrastructure is also influencing
energy efficiency because you do not have to overlay
a power infrastructure.
So again, it’s a combination of different areas – from
a cabling perspective the fibre influence in the data
centre with copper providing a more efficient way
of transporting the power in the building. Couple
this with a number of energy-saving initiatives at a
hardware and facility level and we now have a much
cleaner environment than we did a few years ago. n
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CommScope at GITEX
Femi Oshiga, Vice President, Sales Service Providers,
MEA, spoke to ICIO Africa about CommScope’s
participation in GITEX this year and how CommScope
is catering for the hyper-connected future.
Q: What is CommScope focusing on at
GITEX this year?
A: GITEX for us is always a major event.
This year we are showing a few of our key
technologies that we were looking to bring
into the market in 2018 and onwards, fibre
primarily but also hyper-scale and data
centres. We’re also showing our small cell
portfolio. There’s a lot of interest and there’s
a lot we can go back and work on.
Q: What have you picked up on this week
as the key industry trends? How do you see
those developing in the next year?
Femi Oshiga,
Vice President,
Sales Service
Providers, MEA
A: Definitely fibre, and for two reasons. For our African customers,
they are really looking to build fibre-to-the-home, fibre-to-the-X
infrastructure. They see that as a revenue-generating development,
or a diversification away from voice revenues that are declining
in Africa. South Africa would be a great example of where that’s
happening, as well as Nigeria Morocco, Ghana and Kenya. In the
Middle East, there’s a similar set of drivers but it’s more focused on
advancing infrastructure, smart cities, everything being connected.
The government is driving the investments in those areas. So
slightly different motivations but all the same a big push in fibre.
Q: What do you see as the driving force for the increasing
demand on bandwidth and across the region?
A: First there is the consumer. The consumer is all about video.
We read a study from Cisco where 60% of IP traffic is video
and growing at 60% plus a year. So first is catering to the video
demand driven by youth and innovation. The second is really
about IoT interconnecting everything. For this it’s not so much
bandwidth but more low latency and connectivity everywhere in
whatever form, whether it be wireless or fibre.
Q: How has CommScope had to adapt its solutions for this
increased demand?
A: Our solutions form the bedrock of what you would need to do
anyway to put together a good IoT or smart city story. We have
the wireless devices and infrastructure products and solutions,
these are the antennas that you see on the base station site;
the cables that will carry these traffics without much losses; the
cabling solutions that you would find in the switching centre,
whether that be a small one close to the site or a big central
office or in fact inside the building. In every one of these spaces,
CommScope has a market-leading play and we continue to push
advancements in these areas; more bandwidth, lower latency,
more channels, more features, and so on.
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