Video: Five tips for keeping patch fields neat in the data center

A two-minute video posted to YouTube by Cisco Systems walks viewers through five steps they can take to reduce or eliminate patch-cord clutter in data centers. The video is narrated by Douglas Alger, an IT architect for Cisco. (See books on data center energy efficiency authored by Douglas Alger.)

Alger suggests the following steps for keeping cabling neat and tidy.

1. When designing a data center, plan for an appropriate amount of wire management.

2. Be sure to use correct lengths of patch cords when making connections. Alger advises: "Don't just allow hardware installers to grab a fistful of 8-foot cables and use them everywhere, leaving excess cable length to either hang free or be tucked away in wire management."

3. Stock multiple lengths of cable in the data center.

4. Prewire patch cords into data center networking rows, rather than waiting for those rows to be filled with hardware, "and cabling on a piecemeal basis later," Alger says.

5. Streamline patch cords in data center through hardware choices. Virtualization, for example, allows more computiner power with fewer physical servers and, therefore, less cabling.

Watch the full video below.

Cable technician finds 500-pound bear in basement

A technician for Cablevision found a 500-pound bear asleep in a home in Hopatcong, New Jersey when the technician entered the home's basement to repair a cable line.

NBC's New York affiliate, Channel 4, reported that the bear escaped the home and was later tranquilized and captured. The cable technician was not injured.

You can see NBC 4's reporting, including a video of the captured bear being brought to a truck, here.

The downside of fully connected hospitals

We have reported on several occasions, in multiple formats (articles, web seminars, guides), about the emergence and continued growth of cabling and other communications systems for healthcare facilities. Healthcare facilities, including hospitals, are becoming increasingly "connected" through the use of electronic health records, the need to send extremely large files across networks, etc. One consequence of such fully connected medical facilities is that caregivers - doctors and nurses - are carrying wireless devices with them everywhere, all the time.

Matt Richtel of The New York Times informs us that this situation may have some unintented, negative consequences for patients. In his article entitled "As Doctors Use More Devices, Potential for Distraction Grows," Richtel reports that "55 percent of technicians who monitor bypass machines acknowledged to researchers that they had talked on cellphones during heart surgery. Half said they texted while in surgery." Richtel also references incidents of "a neurosurgeon making personal calls during an operation," and "a nurse checking airfares during surgery."

The article even comes up with a name for the collection of portable devices that have the potential to distract medical providers - the "iPatient."

And I thought texting while driving was a significant offense.

You can read the complete article here.

Medical nightmare: Breast cancer patients miss surgery because of cable theft

The UK-based Daily Mail has reported that nearly 100 medical patients, including two with breast cancer, were forced to miss their scheduled surgeries because thieves stole copper cabling from a hospital's backup generator. The theft from Llandough Hospital in Penarth, south Wales was discovered on Tuesday, December 13, The Daily Mail's Emily Allen reported.

The article quoted university health board chief executive Jan Williams as saying, "NHS staff work tirelessly to care for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. It is depressing to note that, for these thieves, the monetary value of copper is of more consequence."

You can read the full report here.

Video shows fusion splicer crashing to floor then successfully splicing fiber

A video posted to YouTube shows ILSINTECH's Swift S3 fusion splicer crashing to a hard floor then successfully fusing two optical fibers. In the 1:11 video, the splicer is picked up off a table and dropped from waist-height to the floor with a clanging thud. The splicer is then positioned upright on the floor, fibers are inserted and a fuse is completed. At the end of the video the splicer's screen shows a 0.04-dB loss reading for the successful splice.

This is obviously a self-promotional video made and posted by the folks at ILSINTECH. But it's fun to watch.

Judge deems cable thieves security risks, denies bail

Samisoni Nabilivalu has reported in The Fiji Times that a judge denied bail for five Telecom Fiji workers accused of stealing cable, even though the prosecutor didn't oppose bail. The story explains that Magistrate Janaka Bandara "told the five it was not in national interest to grant them bail saying the group's case undermined the security of the general public."

The prosecutor alleges that on November 9, the five suspects stole 100 meters of cable valued at approximately $1,000.

You can read the full story here.

Polywater mourns passing of founder

American Polywater Corporation, provider of cable-pulling lubricants, recently announced the passing of the company's founder Nelson Jonnes. The company issued the following statement.

Nelson Jonnes, the inventor of Polywater Cable Pulling Lubricants, has died at the age of 85 after a long series of illnesses. Born the son, grandson, and great-grandson of physicians in Circleville, Ohio, Nels served in the U.S. Navy (1944 to 1947) and then graduated from Antioch College where he developed a life-long passion for science and education. As a teacher and inventor Nels went on to create 22 patents and led several entrepreneurial adventures, including his most successful: 38-year-old American Polywater.

Antioch president and Massachusetts legislator Horace Mann famously said: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." Nels took this message from his alma mater seriously, and devoted his life to making the world a better place for his having been there. As friends, family, and employees will attest, Nelson Jonnes would have made Horace Mann very proud. He will be missed.

Nels founded his fledgling company with lofty growth goals and based it on two simple principles: 1) Use superior chemistry to develop products that solve problems. 2) Treat people fairly, including employees, agents, distributors, and customers. Nels sold his interest in American Polywater to current management in 1988, but later rejoined the company in an R&D consulting role, finally retiring in 2008 at age 81. He created products and a reputation to be proud of. The result transformed the industry and advanced cable installation technology immeasurably. Now employee-owned, American Polywater evolved with this foundation and continues to thrive.

Nels was an extraordinary fellow. His life experience reads like that of a fictional superhero: entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, orator, chairman, science teacher, mutual fund salesman, big game hunter, chemist, world traveler, Navy sonarman, physicist, Ethiopian "ambassador," athlete, inventor, historian, geologist, musician, philosopher, certified scuba instructor, great grandfather, and more. His advancing age was rarely a barrier. Nels won a bronze medal in table tennis at the Senior Olympics--at age 80. He left American Polywater and the industry with a fine legacy and ideals worth striving for.

TIA sets objectives for 40G over twisted pair

In a post on the Network Infrastructure Blog, Valerie Maguire of Siemon provides some detail on the work being done within the TIA TR-42.7 Copper Cabling Subcommittee to establish specifications for 40-Gbit/sec or higher transmission over twisted-pair copper cabling.

Maguire states that these next-generation cabling parameters are expected to be published in 2014, in addendum 1 to TIA-568-C.2. She further explains that four task groups have been formed to investigate these parameters. The subjects being investigated are Application Space, Capacity, Cables and Connectors.

The blog post also includes a table that lists a series of objectives and whether the TR-42.7 Subcommittee considers each objective "required," "highly desired," "nice to have" or "not required."

You can read Valerie Maguire's full blog post here.

Copper cable thieves suspected in electrocution death of six-month-old foal

A story in The Daily Mail describes the guresome discovery of an electrocuted six-month-old foal following a copper-cable theft near Sittingbourne, Kent, UK. The story's author, Stephanie Darrall, speculates that, after removing a pylon and exposing live wires, thieves may have used the foal to test whether or not electricity was still moving through the wires.

The theft left approximately 3,000 homes without power. The story quotes a resident who lives close to the crime scene as saying, "Most of us believe the people responsible used the foal to test whether the wires were still live, either by putting it on the cable or tempting it over with food."

You can read the Daily Mail story here. Mercifully, it contains no photos of the deceased foal.

Copper prices fall, but what about cable prices?

Are you familiar with our LinkedIn group? If you are not, please join. Approximately 1,700 cabling industry professionals from around the world are members.

For those of you who are members, you may be interested in one of the group's newest discussions. Alan Bullen, managing director of Lynx Networks plc in Milton Keynes, UK and a director of the FibreOptic Industry Association, wants to know: "Now that the price of copper has dropped 35 percent and is at its lowest price for two years, when will we see a corresponding drop in cable prices?" The price chart below is taken from metalprices.com and covers copper pricing over the past six months.



The price of copper has been pointed to frequently as one head of the three-headed monster that has sent the price of copper cable up over the past year-plus. The other two heads on that monster are the price of petroleum (a copper cable's jacket is petroleum-based) and, for plenum-rated cable at least, the price of fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), which insulates the copper conductors of plenum-rated cables. But Alan Bullen is from the U.K., where they do not use plenum cable per se but rather use low-smoke zero-halogen cables. Still, the pricing of those cable types are subject to the costs of the materials used in their manufacture.

So what do you think? Is the price of copper cable on the way down? Is it just wishful thinking? Perhaps a criticism of copper technology from a prominent member of the FibreOptic Industry Association? Check out our LinkedIn group or comment here on The Cabling Blog to weigh in.

In 'Operation Alloy,' police raid scrapyards looking for copper-cable thieves

Police in Stockport, UK, which is near Manchester (map), conducted raids at several scrap-metal yards aiming to catch thieves in the act of cashing in on their crimes. As Bethany English of the Manchester Evening News reports, "Operation Alloy" as it is called, comprised four teams of officers. English reported the officers "were particularly searching for stolen phone cabling and grids" and also were making spot-checks of vans on roads near the scrap yards.

She quoted Sergeant Carl Needham as saying that Operation Alloy will continue through the end of the year at least. In addition to local police officers, the operation includes the efforts of trading-standards and environmental officers, who ensure vehicles are licensed for waste transfer, English explained.

You can read the full report from the Manchester Evening News here.

Below is a video of one of the officers involved, who briefly explains the operation. (If you can understand what he's saying, please let me know. Being from New Hampshire rather than Hampshire, I couldn't even make out his name.)

2012 London Olympics: Is DAS calling? (Is anyone calling? Hello?)

Jacquelin Magnay, covering the 2012 London Olympics for The Telegraph, recently reported that Mayor Boris Johnson admitted mobile-phone users in the city may be out of luck when the games are going on because of a capacity crunch.

"Johnson said he had been concerned about mobile phone capacity for more than two years but the increasing reliance on smartphones ... and the booming sales of tablets ... was making the task [of shifting mobile capacity to the Olympic Park from other parts of the city] increasingly difficult." The mayor is also quoted as saying, "We are looking to install enough masts and have enough physical infrastructure and coverage for the huge demands."

Magnay explained some recent challenges the city has faced concerning mobile-coverage during the games, including the implications of potential mobile blackouts, then added, "the latest problem simply relates to the expectation many of the spectators in the Olympic Park's nine venues will want to tweet, send pictures and text at rates not seen before."

I bet the DAS Forum would enjoy the opportunity to explain to organizers of the London games, the merits of using distributed antenna systems in venues such as theirs.

Researchers use nanotubes to create copper-cable replacement

Researchers from Rice University have published results of their efforts to produce cables made of carbon nanotubes that can conduct electricity. The research's ultimate aim is to develop nanocables that can replace copper cables for conductivity.

In a media release, the university explained, "A Rice lab made such a cable from double-walled carbon nanotubes and powered a fluorescent light bulb at standard line voltage - a true test of the novel material's ability to stake a claim in energy systems of the future."

An abstract of the research has been published on Nature.com.

Enrique Barrera, a professor of mechanical engineering and mateials science at Rice, said that highly conductive nanotube-based cables could be just as efficient as traditional metals at one-sixth of the weight. He added that such cables may initially find use in applications where weight is a critical consideration, such as in airplanes and automobiles. In the future, he said, it could replace traditional wiring in homes.

The university's release continued, "The cables developed in the study are spun from pristine nanotubes and can be tied together without losing their conductivity. To increase conductivity of the cables, the team doped them with iodine and the cables remained stable. The conductivity-to-weight ratio beats metals, including copper and silver, and is second only to the metal with the highest specific conductivity, sodium."

Yao Zhao, one of the nanocables' developers, recently defended his dissertation toward his doctorate at the university and his the lead author of the new paper. He built the demonstration rig that allowed him to toggle through the nanocable and replace the conventional copper wire in the circuit.

This initial study used a few centimeters of cable; in that regard Barrera remarked that spinning billions of nanotubes into a cable at all is quite a feat. "The chemical processes used to grow and then align nanotubes will ultimately be part of a larger process that begins with raw materials and ends with a steady stream of nanocables," he said. The project's planned next stage will be to make longer, thicker cables taht carry higher current and still keep the cable lightweight. "We really want to go better than what copper or other metals can offer overall," Barrera said.

Tsinghua University partnered with Rice on the research and supplied the nanotubes for it.

Rice researchers Barrera and Zhao discuss their efforts in the video below.

Fluke Networks: Yes, preterminated systems do need testing

Fluke Networks has launched a series of reports it has titled "Truths About Installing and Testing Preterminated Fiber." It will be an 8-part series, the company says, and Part 1 is currently available.

Entitled "What Factory Cable Testing Cannot Tell an Installer," Part 1 of the Truth series includes the following statements about preterminated fiber systems: "Once delivered to the end user, the installation process exposes the cable to stress and potential damage that is beyond the scope of any factory test. If installers and network owners take a few simple steps, they can avoid performance problems and ensure that the manufacturer's warranties are upheld."

The report points out three real-world factors that, as Fluke Networks describes it, "will intercede to turn a cable assembly that 'worked when we shipped it to you' into a weak link in the transmission chain."

Those three real-world factors are:
1. Pulling cable through a rack or down a tray can break the fiber. Says Fluke Networks, "When the maximum pulling force on a fiber can be as little as 100 pounds, it is quite possible for an average installer to exceed that maximum and shear one or more fibers in a preterminated trunk."

2. The installation process creates a risk to the cable through microbending and macrobending.

3. There is a high likelihood of connector contamination or damage. "It is very common for the fiber endfaces to become contaminated in the course of installation," the report states.

The report lists inspection, cleaning and testing procedures that are considered best practices for dealing with preterminated fiber systems.

You can view or download Part 1 of Fluke Networks' series "Truths About Installing and Testing Preterminated Fiber" here.

Fluke Networks also posted a 30-second YouTube video summarizing the rationale behind its "Truths Part 1" report. You can see the video below.

Just what's in that cabinet?

As a professional in the cabling industry who has spent countless hours in telecommunications rooms and the enclosures/cabinets within those rooms, you may very well believe that you have seen it all.

The clever marketing folks at Automated Outlet are betting you have not seen it all. They have posted on YouTube a video showing a cabinet for structured wiring that houses ... no, not cabling. Liquor. The "Cool Home Automation Liquor Cabinet Using Structured Wiring" is made up of parts available from Automated Outlet. Although I bet the liquor is sold separately.

It's a simple concept and the video tour is only 30 seconds in duration. You can check it out below.

First the cable was fake, now the conference is

For some time we've been reporting on incidents of bogus cable, typically twisted-pair copper cable, popping up around the world and usually originating in Asia. At this point, that's not really brand-new news anymore. But over the past week I became aware of something that is new: A fake conference about wire and cable.

From what I can tell, the purported "China Wire & Cable Industry Summit 2011" looks like an effort to obtain credit-card information. A flyer has been circulated for a conference with that aforementioned title, supposedly being held in Shanghai November 25 and 26 of this year. The flyer includes a full two-day agenda with realistic-sounding session titles and descriptions. And, the agenda includes the names of actual companies and people, claiming they will participate in the conference. Except, from all I can tell, these people and companies don't know a thing about the conference they're supposedly a part of.

The last page of the brochure is a registration form seeking credit card and passport information.

Adding to the confusion for some who have been contacted about this apparently non-existent event is the fact that there is a real event taking place October 26-28 in Shanghai. That event is called the China International Wire and Cable Industry Exhibition and is legitimate.

I feel like Charlie Brown because all I can think to say is: Good grief.

Modified U.S. Army drone spies on WiFi users

Several news outlets, including this report from CNET, told the story this week about the security engineers who showed off an unmanned aerial vehicle that can spy on WiFi users. The demonstration took place at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.

The engineers, Mike Tassey and Rich Perkins, did not conduct a live demonstration of the drone's capabilities. But they did bring it out on stage and told some frightening stories about what they had been able to accomplish by adding their own touches to it. Among those "touches" are "a payload of wireless sniffers and network-cracking tools," CNET's Declan McCullagh reported. McCullagh also quoted Perkins as saying, "We can identify a target by his cell phone and follow him home to where enterprise security doesn't reach. We can reverse engineer someone's life."

Perkins and Tassey call the drone WASP - Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform. A test flight has been posted on YouTube.

House explosions blamed on copper-cable theft

According to this report from The Daily Mail, a row of houses in Castleton, West Yorkshire, UK exploded literally seconds after firefighters evacuated the residents. The causes of the string of blasts, firefighters told The Daily Mail, was the theft of copper electrical cable overhead. That theft "affected the earthing of the area's electrical network," the report says.

Astonishing footage of the explosions was captured by a camera mounted to one of the firefighting vehicles. The footage was posted to YouTube.

You can see it below. The video includes multiple explosions and is slightly more than one minute in duration.

More tips for detecting counterfeit cables

Since the Fiber Optic Association published an item in its July 2011 newsletter about weighing copper cable to help determine if its conductors are copper or aluminum, the association has gotten a number of suggestions from professionals in the industry about that and other methods of counterfeit detection.

UPDATE (7/27): I have learned that most of the comments/tips provided to the FOA, and summarized here, came from James Mitchell, who operates a website called helpmecableguy.

Among the comments are the following.

1) Some cable brands include a plastic spool in the box, which adds 2 to 4 pounds to the box. And some generic cable brands can weigh as much as 25 to 30 pounds for bulk Cat 5e UTP. These differences may make it more difficult to detect a counterfeit, because even if lighter aluminum conductors are used the overall weight of the box could be close to that of a legit, copper-conductor cable.

2) Look for the holographic UL sticker (although it's also noted that holographic stickers are sometimes found on counterfeit CDs and DVDs).

3) From a street vendor in China (no kidding): Cut the wires into small sections and try picking them up with a magnet.

4) The newsletter update also expresses the importance of flammability ratings being genuine, in addition to the cable's performance characteristics.

You can read the updated FOA July 2011 newsletter here; it includes more detailed comments than those summarized in this post.

Cable-theft attempt kills 16-year-old boy

BBC has reported that a 16-year-old boy was killed in Stourton, UK on Sunday, July 3 while apparently attempting to steal copper cable and components from a power station.

The news agency identified the electrocution victim as Ryan Woolams.

The power station is owned and operated by CE Electric UK. That company told BBC it had dealt with 279 incidents of metal theft within the past year.

CE Electric UK's head of safety Geoff Earl made a plea for would-be thieves to consider the potentially tragic consequences of their actions.

You can read BBC's coverage here.

Talk about an underground crime operation

I'm not sure if the attempted theft of copper cable is more prevalent in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States, or if the U.K. news media pays more attention to the crime than does the news media in this country. Either way, I never go too long without hearing about such a theft, or attempted theft, somewhere in the U.K.

Not long ago we told you about the young man who was nearly electrocuted while trying to steal copper cable from an electrical substation. The permanently scarred culprit spoke remorsefully at his sentencing.

Now I hear about the enterprising 33-year-old from Glasgow who made it look like he was supposed to be working in manholes while he was trying to make off with some of BT's copper cable.

According to reporting by The Courier (which takes you to the heart of Tayside and Fife), Dean Monaghan put on reflective clothing, erected a worker's tent, and put up signs and cones around manhole covers in his attempt to "hide in plain sight" last fall.

The attempt failed. I won't steal the entire story from The Courier. Enter the heart of Tayside and Fife yourself. Read all about it here.

The perils of patch cords

In a blog post, CommScope's director of channel development and training James Donovan outlines the potential risks that users take on when they complete their cabling channels by adding "just any" patch cords to installed permanent links. According to Donovan, even checking a patch cord's jacket for a stamp of standard-compliance does not ensure a top-notch cabling channel. As he notes, "standards specify minimum requirements only, and do not cover all the coupling and reflection effects that may occur within or between components."

Add to that Fluke Networks' recent assertion that most patch cords are only tested for wiremap, regardless of what is inkjetted on the jacket, and the perilous patch cord becomes a system component that deserves closer attention than it gets, in the opinion of many.

Donovan describes some of the measures CommScope takes to ensure its patch cords perform at the highest possible levels, and also gives an earful of what users might be in for if they are laissez faire (or, dare I say it, cheap) when it comes to patch-cord selection. Among the possible outcomes is intermittent continuity, which Donovan describes as "a network manager's worst nightmare."

You can read Donovan's complete blog post here.

FOA president chronicles training trip through Africa

Jim Hayes, president of The Fiber Optic Association, posted on the FOA website a summary of his recent trip to three African countries during which he, other FOA personnel, and professionals based in Africa provided fiber-optic training.

The training sessions took place May 9 in Johannesburg, South Africa; May 17 in Nairobi, Kenya; and May 20 in Lusaka, Zambia. In his journal-style summary of the trip, Hayes noted, "As one of the fastest growing markets for telecommunications, Africa is planning the installation of more fiber-optic infrastructure and needs trained technicians to perform the design, installation and maintenance work necessary ... Our visits to South Africa, Kenya and Zambia gave us a view into the variations in developments in Africa, with SA being on a par with the U.S., Europe or the Asian rim countries, Kenya rapidly building infrastructure and Zambia in an earlier stage of development."

He noted that many submarine cables reach African shores, and the current need is to build infrastructure within the continent and distribute it for general use.

Rather than copy or paraphrase Hayes's writing, I'll encourage you to read it for yourself here on the FOA website. Doing so will also give you an opportunity to see all the photos from the FOA's trip to Africa as well as to find other items and resources on that site. The "report from Africa" is part of the FOA's June online newsletter, which also includes an article that asks if telecom is dead, information about the new FOA iPad app, news about Corning running out of fiber and more.

Wall calendar takes comic look at data centers

I'm a bit late on the draw with this one but there's still plenty of time to enjoy and get use out of the March 2011-March 2012 wall calendar available from Communications Supply Corporation.

The calendar includes comic-strip-style artistry from CSC sales rep Diane Alber and focuses on data center environments. CSC put quotes around the word "educational" when describing the calendar's running comic strip called Kip and Gary. To me that means it's more fun than learning. On the slightly-more-serious side, the calendar also includes products that can be used in data centers.

The calendar is free to anyone who signs up to receive it. You can do that here.

Disclaimer: I ordered my calendar from CSC immediately before writing this, so I have not yet received it and can't tell you firsthand how humorous the comics are. But I'm eager to find out.

Nearly-electrocuted copper-cable thief speaks remorsefully

Several UK-based news sources have reported on the fate of 22-year-old James Sorby, who was nearly electrocuted by 22,000 volts of electricity while trying to steal copper cable from an electrical substation.

One of those sources, The Daily Mail, ran a story that includes graphic photos of Sorby shortly after his ill-fated theft attempt. The story also includes an image of Sorby's scarred hands. You can see the story here, but please be aware that you may find the images disturbing.

In remorseful comments, Sorby told legal magistrates, "My message is, 'Don't do it.' Before I did this, it was just an idea and there was no danger to it. Everyone thinks it's so easy and they have no idea how stupid they're being. When you think of getting involved in something like this, you don't think of the danger."

Sorby's plight was in the news because he was due to be sentenced for his crime. The Yorkshire Evening Post reports his sentence was a 12-month supervision order.

Encircled flux: A practical view

by Eric Pearson, CFOS

I have been following the encircled flux (EF) standard from the sidelines. From this position I do not have the entire picture. With that understanding, I offer the following information.

Any measurement method has three objectives. First, the measured loss should indicate that the link will or will not work. Second, a subtle objective, the measured loss should indicate proper installation of the link components. Third, the measured loss should be the same with test equipment from different manufacturers.

Let's look at the first objective: The measured loss should indicate that the link will or will not work. The EF method of defining launch power distribution is a compromise of the distribution for the two types of multimode light sources: LEDs and VCSELs. In this characteristic, compromise, the EF method is no different from the coupled power ratio (CPR) method required by TIA/EIA-568-B. However, the EF method is a compromise that is different from that of the CPR method of TIA/EIA-568-B.

There are two consequences of this compromise. The first consequence is that the measured loss will be less than the loss experienced with an LED transmitter (100Base-F or 100Base-SX). The risk with testing for loss from LED transmitters is that an acceptable measured loss may not result in proper operation. Thus, troubleshooting and installation costs can increase.

The second consequence is that the measured loss will be greater than the loss experienced with a VCSEL transmitter (1000Base-SX or 10GBase-SX). The risk with testing for loss from VCSEL transmitters is that an unacceptable measured loss may not result in improper operation. Thus, installation or rework costs can increase unnecessarily.

Of course, if the link components (cable, connectors and splices) are properly installed, the measured loss is likely to indicate proper operation for either type of light source. But it is this objective -- determination of proper installation -- that is the second objective of any test method.

Let's look at the second objective: The measured loss should indicate proper installation of the link components. Both the EF and CPR methods have the same difficulty with indicating proper installation. This difficulty results not from the test method, but from the TIA/EIA-568 standard. The TIA/EIA-568 standard recommends a method of calculation of the loss acceptance value. This method uses the maximum attenuation rate and connector loss values. This method conflicts with the reality of proper product installation. Properly installed cables, connectors and splices will have actual losses that are closer to the typical losses than they are to the maximum losses. Thus, neither EF nor CPR test methods can fulfill the second objective of a test method.

Such fulfillment requires the designer and installer to establish their own method. In our fiber-optic installation and design training programs and texts, including Successful Fiber Optic Installation - The Essentials, we at Pearson Technologies recommend a method to resolve this difficulty.

For now, let's look at the third objective: The measured loss should be the same with test sources from different manufacturers. While writing about encircled flux recently you stated, "In the meantime, there was poor correlation among labs when international round-robin testing was initially conducted. Another round-robin test is now underway." Obviously, the EF method does not yet meet this objective.

What are the network designer and installer to do? Because, apparently, losses measured with test equipment from different manufacturers do not yet agree, designers and installers should reference the TIA/EIA-568-B test method (CPR). When the EF test method is shown to create no problems for the installer and tester, the designer and installer can reference the TIA/EIA-568-C test method (EF). Of course, doing so may require purchase of new test sources and/or equipment.

We justify this recommendation with two facts. First, the CPR method of TIA/EIA-568-B does result in the same measured losses with test sources from different manufacturers. Our testing indicates that losses are with 0.05 dB of one another. this value is less than the repeatability value of 0.2 dB stated on many connector data sheets. Second, the CPR method results in the same measured loss with test sources that have a CPR ratio that is slightly outside of that defined in TIA/EIA-568-B. In 2003, testing conducted by Pearson Technologies demonstrated these two facts.

Eric R. Pearson, CFOS is president of Pearson Technologies Inc. You can reach him via email at fiberguru@ptnowire.com.

Cisco's PoE Passthrough switch powers itself

Cisco Systems has developed a Power over Ethernet Passthrough switch, which powers itself. In a video Narayanan Krishnamoorthy, a technical marketing engineer with Cisco, explains that the concept of PoE Passthrough is power coming into the switch from uplink ports that are PoE and PoE-Plus-capable. The switch uses that power to power itself, and if excess power is available, the switch allocates that power on the downlink ports.

The switch has no power supply and is cooled by convection, as is pointed out in the video. As a result, the switch is fanless and therefore quiet. Krishnamoorthy says Cisco put its best engineers on the project of developing the PoE Passthrough. A key technological breakthrough was the development of a chip to accept PoE coming through the uplink.

The in-house Cisco video, as we might expect, gushes over the switch's capability.

Take a look.

Reader lambastes shielded-cabling coverage

In a guest-commentary article that will be published in Cabling Installation & Maintenance's June issue, magazine reader Gautier Humbert takes the magazine's editor to task for authoring an article that Humbert believes tells only one side of a technical story. Humbert is a business development manager for Legrand in East and Central Europe. The article with which Humbert takes issue is The technical realities of twisted-pair beyond 10G, published in the magazine's April 2011 issue. That article, authored by magazine editor Patrick McLaughlin (OK, I'll admit it, that's me), was derived in large part from a Web-delivered seminar that took place in January. That seminar was entitled Twisted-Pair Cabling and Higher-Than-10G Transmission, and can be seen and heard here. During the seminar, presenters told of the then-current state of affairs within standards bodies to establish bona fide cabling and/or networking standards through which twisted-pair cabling systems would support Ethernet transmission at 40 Gbits/sec. The seminar also included discussion of the reasons such standards efforts are being proposed -- or, said differently, the seminar included advocacy for such standards proposals.

In his commentary article, Humbert makes the argument that foiled/unshielded twisted-pair (F/UTP) cabling, not shielded/foiled twisted-pair (S/FTP) cabling, is likely to be the medium of the future. The article and corresponding seminar included significant information about the characteristics of S/FTP cabling. In addition to making an argument based on a combination of technical and market factors, Humbert chastises McLaughlin (me) for penning an article that told just a single side of the story. He says, "The fact that some manufacturers use tools like one-viewpoint white papers to push their solutions is not new. If any company wants to do this, I think they have the right to. But for this magazine to support it, I believe, is a mistake."

Cabling Installation & Maintenance's June issue will be mailed to subscribers in the middle of the month and will be available online at approximately the same time.

Rather than take a defensive posture and develop creative ways to challenge Gautier Humbert's stance, I'll recall one of the more famous lines from U.S. Senator Scott Brown's campaign, in which he won the Senate seat that had been vacated with the passing of the late Senator Edward Kennedy. During one of Brown's debates with Massachusetts's Attorney General Martha Coakley, Brown stated (and I'm paraphrasing here but you can watch it on YouTube), "It's not Kennedy's seat. It's the people's seat." In a similar vein, Cabling Installation & Maintenance is not my magazine. I'm privileged to serve as its editor and I hope that in doing so, I'm actually serving you. My own inherently biased opinion about the value of that article in our April issue is not what matters. Your opinion is what matters.

Young cabling professionals compete at WorldSkills

The profession we know and love, cabling, is part of the annual WorldSkills Competition. Described by WikiPedia as a competition for youth from 17 to 22 years of age to demonstrate their excellence in skilled professions, WorldSkills is held every two years in a member country. The 2009 competition took place in Calgary, Canada and this year's event will be held in London in October.

WorldSkillsTV has posted a few cabling-specific videos from Calgary on YouTube. In the 90-second video embedded here, competitor Rounnachai Ampaipoka of Thailand reflects on his first day of participation in the event.



In a separate video from 2009, which you can see here, Fluke Networks' David Coffin discusses his company's participation as a sponsor of the 2009 competition.

You can visit the WorldSkills website here.

Oh, flux. There's more to the story.

Recently in some online postings as well as an article that appeared in the April issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine, we have brought you information about the recently adopted TIA-526-14-B standard that specifies encircled flux as the launch condition for installed multimode fiber cable. The TIA TR-42 Committee approved TIA-526-14-B in October 2010.

After seeing the article in our April issue, Jim Hayes, founder of The Fiber Optic Association and VDV Works, wrote to me. Within his letter, Hayes noted that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which first standardized the encircled-flux launch condition, did so based on research conducted by a single individual. Additionally, the research "only looked at multimode loss up to 2 dB." Hayes added that based on tests he (Hayes) conducted with another individual, at loss values higher than 2 dB, the technology used to achieve the EF launch condition "failed to even make two OTDRs agree, and the results were vastly different depending on the configurations of the cable plant."

Hayes also said that much of the EF analysis conducted when the TIA was considering adopting the EF specifications, was done using simulations of cable plants. "Real world data was scarce," he said. In the meantime, there was poor correlation among labs when international round-robin testing was initially conducted. Another round-robin test is now underway.

In his letter, Hayes noted CI&M's recent coverage of bend-insensitive fiber (pro and con), commending the magazine for "noting that there was still controversy in the marketplace." He added, "I think you should have treated encircled flux with the same skepticism."

The Fiber Optic Association has published and maintains a Reference Guide to Fiber Optics. The guide's section on Modal Effects on Multimode Fiber Loss Measurements includes information on encircled flux and its adoption by the TIA. That section describes EF as "a more precise method of defining mode fill," and "a more sensitive way of defining power." That section of the guide later explains that EF has been incorporated into several multimode testing standards, adding, "It is intended to create a more reproducible modal condition for testing that is similar to the CPR/mandrel wrap method ... Since EF is new (as of 2/2011), testing sources for EF [have] not been demonstrated to be well correlated between labs or manufacturers, so using it is not yet widely accepted. It will probably not be a widely used method before 2012."

You can read that section of the Reference Guide to Fiber Optics here.

This take on encircled flux differs from information we have published in the past, including this article from a year ago. Despite the questions that Hayes raises about the validity of EF across a range of loss values, it remains the specified launch condition in TIA-526-14-B as well as IEC 61280-4-1 edition 2, from which the TIA adopted it. We intend to follow the practical application of encircled flux, and describe its real-world use for testing installed multimode fiber plants.

Fiber installers, splicers needed in U.S. Southeast

Eric Pearson of Pearson Technologies Inc. is recruiting professionals experienced in fiber-optic installation and splicing to help restore the many telephone lines that were damaged by the storms that recently ravaged the U.S. Southeast region.

Pearson is looking for experienced outside-plant contractors and installers for a project that will begin promptly and is expected to take approximately 90 days. Applicants are expected to have their own equipment.

Pearson can be reached by telephone at 770-490-9991 or by email at fiberguru@ptnowire.com.

Video looks inside Google data center

A seven-minute video posted on YouTube leads viewers through the security measures that Google takes within its data centers. In addition to information about how the company controls access to its data center facilities, the video provides some entertaining views of the destruction of hard drives that have reached the end of their useful lives. Google's point is to emphasize the measures it takes to protect the customer data on those drives.

About 3:45 into the video is a demonstration of a machine dubbed "the crusher," which pushes a steel piston through the drive. Next for the unfortunate former piece of computing equipment is the drive shredder, which does exactly what you would expect a drive shredder to do. The shredded drives are recycled.

Cabling also makes its way into the conversation. About 5:30 into the video, the narrator states, "Google data centers are connected to the Internet via high-speed fiber-optic cabling. In each data center there are multiple redundant connections to protect against the possibility of a failure from a single connection."

Rebels hacked, rewired Libya's cell network for their own use

A compelling story from Wall Street Journal reporters Margaret Coker and Charles Levinson details how Libyan rebels - with help from individuals and governments supportive of their cause and without help from some equipment suppliers - rewired a portion of Libya's cellular-communications network to allow the rebels to communicate with each other.

The WSJ article states, "engineers hived off part of the Libyan cellphone network ... and rewired it to run independently of the regime's control." The article explains that the country's telcommunications infrastructure is built in a star topology, the center of which is Tripoli, allowing Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's government to control phone and Internet access. Libyan rebels had been without telecommunications access of any kind and were resorting to flag-waving during battles with government forces, the article says, before help from outside of Libya aided them.

The story details the efforts of Libyan-born, American-raised telecom executive Ousama Abushagur, who currently resides in Abu Dhabi. It reads a little like a work of international-espionage fiction, describing telecom-equipment provide Huawei's contract with the nation of Libya and refusal to supply equipment to the rebels as well as the roles of neighboring countries and their telecommunications companies in the hacking effort.

The story states that once they obtained the needed equipment and were on the ground - or perhaps more appropriately on the towers - in Libya, the system-installation crew "fused the new equipment into the existing cellphone network, creating an independent data and routing system free from Tripoli's command."

You can read the entire Wall Street Journal story by Coker and Levison here.

Elderly woman, digging for scrap, knocks out Internet in Eastern Europe

CNET Asia has reported that a 75-year-old woman cut off Internet access to thousands in the Eastern European countries of Georgia and Armenia when she dug up a fiber-optic line, thinking the cable was copper and aiming to scrap the metal for cash.

The enterprising senior citizen was arrested for her efforts. Local media outlets have begun calling her the "spade hacker" and report that she faces up to three years' imprisonment if convicted.

According to reports, officials at Georgian Railway Telecom, which owns the fiber-optic line, were surprised at the amount of damage done. CNET quoted the company's top marketing executive as saying, "I cannot understand how this lady managed to find and damage the cable. It has robust protection and such incidents are extremely rare."

One news outlet is reporting that the accused is claiming innocence and has been distraught since her arrest. ABSCBN News identified the woman as Hayastan Shakarian and said she "tearfully insisted she was innocent and she had never heard of the web."

Their story quoted her as follows: "I did not cut this cable. Physically, I could not do it. I have no idea what the Internet is." A Georgian interior minister, however, claimed that Shakarian had already confessed.

County forgets to include cabling when building new jail

A new justice center is being built in Houston County, Minnesota without the cabling necessary for in-building wireless communication. According to reporting from the Spring Grove Herald, county commissioners railed against the consultant who apparently forgot to include an in-building distributed antenna system (DAS) in the construction plan. In a plight that is too familiar to many in the cabling industry, the system was tacked onto the contract at the last minute but rejected.

The $101,247 bid from Cellular Specialties Inc. was met with scorn from some of the commissioners. As The Herald's writer Craig Moorhead noted, Houston County Commission Chairman Jack Miller said, "We seem to be spending money on every whim and want, and enough is enough. There is a cheaper way to communicate when you're in that building." Smith suggested the use of handheld walkie-talkie style communication.

It sounds like Miller's biggest beef is with the consultant who overlooked the DAS: "We're paying half a million dollars, practically, to a consultant, and at the last minute we come up with this ..." he is quoted as saying.

Another commissioner's comments make me think that someday we'll hear about the $350,000 brownfield DAS installation at the Houston County, Minnesota Justice Center. "It wasn't budgeted," said commissioner Tom Bjerke. "If we delay this, we could always put it in later."

Or maybe not. After all, there are far more economical options than an in-building distributed antenna system.

Not to say I told you so, but ...

Remember that rant I went on about how a "just-for-fun" contest, looking for the biggest cabling mess around, could really be a setup for a movement to rid the world of as many cables as possible? If you don't remember it, or just can't wait to read it again, here it is.

Well, today I found a blog post from Cisco Systems' J Metz, a product manager for FCoE. The post's title: FCoE Cabling - Before and After. Take a look.

Crazy Cabling Contest more than it appears?

First Black Box launched a makeover contest for messy racks and telecommunications rooms, the winner of which will receive $20k in equipment and installation services. That contest appears to be going well. Last I heard there were 100 or so entries. Black Box has determined the five finalists and anyone can vote to decide the winner.

Today I learned about another, similar contest sponsored by none other than Cisco Systems. It's called the Crazy Cabling Contest (go ahead and click to find out all about it). Like Black Box, Cisco is looking for photos of the worst abominations of telecom rooms. "Send us a photo of your data center in all its crazy, twisty and windy glory and you could win big!" they say. The top three photos, as judged by popular vote, each will win a Flip Mino HD 120 camera. The top winner will also receive a $200 Amazon gift card with second- and third-place entries receiving $100 and $50 Amazon gift cards, respectively.

So if you've already missed out on Black Box's $20,000 prize package, you still have a chance to win something.

In its promotion of the Crazy Cabling Contest, Cisco says it doesn't plan to disclose the name of anyone submitting a photo, nor the location at which the photo was taken. "This is strictly for fun," they say. OK but, well ... it's not that I don't completely believe them when they say it's only for fun. It's just that, I maybe kind of don't completely believe them. I read the contest's official rules. OK, maybe not all five pages of them, but I read until I found what I was looking for. Basically, once you submit a photo for this contest, they can do anything they want with it. Here's how they officially say that.

By Submitting Photo(s), Participant irrevocably grants Sponsor and its affiliates, legal representatives, assigns, agents and licensees, the unconditional, irrevocable and perpetual right and permission, royalty-free, to reproduce, encode, store, copy, transmit, publish, post, broadcast, display, publicly perform, adapt, exhibit and/or otherwise use or reuse (without limitation as to when or to the number of times used), for any purpose, the Participant's Photo(s) and ideas and materials contained therein ...

It goes on much longer than that. And it all sounds like pretty run-of-the-mill legal stuff. I'm sure it is. But am I the only one who will not be surprised if and when a Cisco campaign disparages cables as cumbersome and a necessary evil, using one or more of these contest photos as evidence? Further, I suspect that such a campaign would only be created to promote a technology solution that allows you to rid your network of those dreaded cables, making them an unnecessary evil.

Remember IBM's "Out With Cables, In With Blades" advertising campaign, which essentially depicted the essence of our industry as a menace to data networking? When I would see that commercial during a National Football League game, for example, I'd wonder what kind of an impression it made on the millions of NFL fans who don't know anything about cabling.

And remember the word "adapt" from that legal disclaimer? Photos of cabling messes could be altered to look even worse than they really are. Imagine such a commercial from Cisco airing during a Green Bay-Chicago game in the fall.

Almost makes me want the lockout to happen. Almost.

Taking on a myth about IP convergence and cabling

In his latest blog post, CommScope Enterprise Solutions' director of channel development and training James Donovan addresses what he calls "a myth in the infrastucture market" concerning IP convergence and structured cabling.

The myth, he says, is that one of IP convergence's prime benefits is the need for less cabling. The post encourages network managers to focus on convergence's other benefits because the "fewer cables" mantra could leave them short of the infrastructure support their networks will need.

"IP applications mean a 'single type of cable,' but not necessarily a 'single cable,'" Donovan advises.

You can read his entire blog post here.

Social Security is more messed up than you think

As a Generation Xer who cynically believes that each year I get farther away from retirement rather than closer to it, I long ago gave up on the notion that I will ever receive a Social Security payment from the United States government. In that vein, recently I began watching the Frontline episode entitled Can You Afford to Retire? Even though it was produced before the global economic meltdown of 2008, the program seemed to do a prescient job of offering gloom-and-doom to Baby Boomers and the generations that follow them.

I say "seemed to do" because I was unable to stay awake for the show's entirety. I'm thankful that my three children exhaust me to the point of collapse on a regular basis because, had I mustered the energy to watch the rest of that Frontline episode, I bet I would have been unable to sleep afterward.

Before this turns into a political rant, which is not what you came here for, I told the above story because even if I did have a high level of confidence in our country's Social Security Administration (SSA), that optimism would have been dashed after reading some of the testimony recently given to a joint Congressional subcommittee concerning the state of the SSA's data center.

In early February the SSA's deputy commissioner of systems Kelly Croft described the unsightly scene beneath the raised floor of the administration's National Computer Center (NCC).

After explaining that it may soon be impossible to find replacement parts for the NCC's custom-made uninterruptible power supply, Croft said, "We face even more fundamental problems at the NCC, such as tangled and overcrowded telecommunications and electrical cables beneath the data center floor. Tangled cables can block the underfloor airflow that cools our servers, and we cannot work on the cables safely without shutting down the affected systems.

"Similarly," he noted, "troubleshooting problems is difficult when we cannot isolate cable pairs easily to determine whether the problems exist in the cables or in the IT equipment. There is also an elevated risk of data corruption, because electromagnetic interference from the electrical wires that are located too close to the telecommunications wires can distort data transmission."

Plans for the SSA's new data center apparently are already pretty far behind schedule. Even though I'm not expecting a Social Security payment anytime in the future, I'm concerned for those receiving payments today and the state of the information systems that, if they crashed, I have to believe would put those payments in peril at least temporarily.

I think it'd be worthwhile to alert my Congressional representatives to the sad condition of the SSA's data center, as well as the potential ramifications of an outage of any duration. Maybe you'll consider doing the same.

Dissing fiber? Me?

Recently I had the opportunity to break bread with a handful of professionals who are fully immersed in the business of fiber-optic cabling systems for local area networks. (Read: A vendor that sells fiber systems took me out to lunch.) As the conversation wound down and we were all about to be late for our next appointments, a member of the group offered me an, "Oh, by the way ..." message. It was from another member of the organization who was unable to be present at the meeting, although I now wonder if it was one of those thinly veiled questions asked on behalf of "a friend." Regardless, the message was that this friend was taken aback by the scant few mentions of fiber-optic technologies I included when I assessed the 10 most compelling cabling stories of last year.

At that moment, I was taken aback by the observation. What? I'm being accused of dissing fiber? Couldn't be. But then I mentally scanned through the stories I chose as the biggest of 2010, and the focuses of those stories. Price of copper? Check. 10GBase-T? Check. Increasing the density of the RJ-45? Check? Wireless? Check!

I guess maybe there was some justification for the feeling of disrespect among those who advocate the use of fiber-optic systems, and do so because of their genuine faith in the medium's superiority over other options.

In all fairness, fiber did make its way onto the list in a couple ways. The OM4 standard was mentioned, as were the fiber-rich outside-plant cabling projects taking place with funding from the Broadband Stimulus Act.

But it was the final item on that top-10 list where I apparently did a good job of hiding fiber-optic cabling. I rolled up a number of items under the heading "continuous improvement." The reason I chose that theme as one of last year's top stories is that virtually anytime we posted on our Web site information about a practical resource relating to fiber optics, it was eagerly consumed. By "resource," I mean a reference to a fiber-optic text book or training. The single-page poster on fiber safety produced by The Fiber Optic Association was a particularly big hit. In that sense, fiber was among the most popular topics of 2010.

My hypothesis is that fiber-optic cable as a medium is a stable technology. Its users don't have to "plug and pray" that it will work. So you don't see dozens of articles along the lines of "How to make sure your fiber-optic cabling system will successfully transmit 10-Gbit Ethernet." Looking at the hands-on installation of fiber is where it gets more interesting. I believe many installers are paying more attention to fiber than they had before. For some, perhaps for the first time. Based not on scientific polling but rather on a "finger-in-the-air" approach, I believe that many contracting firms used to have one or more fiber-optic installation specialists on staff. Many of these specialist positions were cut once the economic collapse of 2008 took hold. And now the situation is an example of the jobless recovery we're experiencing. Professionals with fiber-optic installation expertise are not being hired back, and now that - dare I say it? - demand for fiber systems is picking up, installers and technicians with lots of experience in copper cabling but little if any in fiber cabling are looking for all the information they can get.

What I'd really like to hear is your experience from the real world. How close to reality is my assessment?

Guest Blog: Good start to BIMMF debate, but it may be prudent to wait

by Eric Leichter, manager of training and technology, CommScope

I appreciate the balanced view that an industry publication like Cabling Installation & Maintenance offers by providing two sides of the bend-insensitive multimode fiber (BIMMF) story. In its January issue, the magazine published two articles that provide opposing viewpoints on this topic. The first article, Compatibility issues with bend-insensitive and standard multimode, warned that a higher connection loss could be seen when matching legacy and BIMMF. The second article, The facts about BIMMF, did not disagree with this claim, stating, "... differences in designs in BIMMF result in differnces in performance." The article went on to describe the deficiencies in some of these designs. After reading and digesting both, a key takeaway for me was that there is no standard that can make a user of these technologies certain of what performance to expect.

Both TIA and IEC have formed working groups to further investigate this new technology; however, it may take some time for the industry to properly define the performance characteristics of a "standard" BIMMF and to develp the new test procedures that will likely be required. Today's test procedures were developed for a traditional graded-index profile fiber and may not be relevant for fibers with a trench profile. "Testing" can include factory testing by the manufacturer (i.e. core diamter, numerical aperture or bandwidth) or testing in the field by an installer (i.e. source, type of patch cord fiber and mandrel to use). Beyond the unknown timing of BIMMF standards, it is also not possible to say now which, if any, of the available BIMMFs will be compliant to a new standard.

It may be best simply to continue to focus on system performance, as high bandwidth and low bit error rates are the keys to high data throughput. For this, we already have standards-based OM3 and OM4 fibers that provide 100G performance. Today, there's no real need to look any further.

CommScope has authored two white papers that explore the issue in further depth. You can access one white paper here and the other one here.

Eric Leichter, CommScope's manager of training and technology, also blogs on CommScope's website. You can see his CommScope blog here.

While TE was buying, TI was selling

At the same time Tyco Electronics (soon to be known as TE Connectivity) was finalizing its purchase of ADC, Tyco International (which I'll call TI here just because I'm calling the other one TE) was finalizing the sale a majority interest in its electrical and metal products busines to a private-equity firm.

TE and TI are separate entities.

In late December TI sold a 51% stake in that business to Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC. The agreement was announced in November. TI will receive total cash proceeds of approximately $720 million, the VC firm said in an announcement that the deal was completed.

The business will operate as a standalone entity under the name Atkore International. It designs, manufactures and sells galvanized steel tubes and pipes, electrical conduit, armored wire and cable, metal framing systems and building components. Products are sold under brand names including Allied Tube & Conduit, AFC Cable Systems, Eastern Wire and Conduit, Unistrut and Cope.

One person's resolution for 2011: Steal cable

Perhaps trying to keep up with the one entity that is rumored to have possession of half the world's copper, another entity in Richmond, Kentucky took advantage of the quiet New Year's weekend to make off with 3,100 feet of copper cable from an AT&T facility there.

WKYT in Richmond reports that the thief cut through a chain-link fence then broke through locks on the racks that secured the cable. The cable was valued at approximately $7,600.

One particularly compassionate commenter to the WKYT story regretted that the fence was not electrified. "THEN THE UNDERTAKER COULD MAKE SOME MONEY," the commenter wrote (in all caps, of course). "IF IT DON'T BELONG TO YOU, LEAVE IT WHERE YOU FIND IT."

Hear, hear.

CommScope shareholders overwhelmingly approve Carlyle merger

CommScope has reported that 99 percent of the shares voting at a special stockholder meeting held December 30 voted in favor of the adoption of the company's merger with The Carlyle Group.

That overwhelming majority represented 74 percent of CommScope's total outstanding shares of common stock as of the December 3 record date.

CommScope's prediction that its Carlyle Group merger would take place in Q1 2011 looks to be right on track.