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.