Comcast profits surge 30% on broadband growth

A blog by Brian Stelter on nytimes.com explains how while "Comcast has been losing TV subscribers to DirecTV and Verizon FiOS for years...its revenue gain on the broadband side [in Q2 of this year] was 8 percent." The blog reports on how "[it] is broadband, not cable television, that is generally bolstering cable companies’ results these days, because nearly nine out of 10 American households already subscribe to some sort of TV, but only two-thirds subscribe to broadband."

Bloomberg News also notes how Comcast's "Cable subscriber metrics [have] exceeded [analyst] estimates in all three services."

Related News & Products for Cabling Professionals:

Wireless broadband provider Alvarion wins court decision against creditor
TDR fault locator zooms in on plethora of RF cabling issues
Hardened industrial panel computers target hazardous locations
Keynotes announced for 'TIA 2013: Future of the Network'

400G Internet connections?

Bell Labs has reportedly boosted Internet connections to 400 Gbps using noise-canceling technology. Yes, you read that right:  the same technology that bleeds out noise from common headphones may in the end help Internet data not only travel longer distances, but also faster and more reliably, according to findings from Bell Laboratories researchers, recently published in Nature Photonics.

The study's lead author, Dr. Xiang Liu, told BBC News, “This concept, looking back, is quite easy to understand, but surprisingly, nobody did this before.”

See also:  Looking from 100/400G toward Terabit networking line cards

As noted at Digital Trends, "Like noise-canceling headphones that use external sounds to drown out the noise that you hear in your ears, Liu and his team discovered that the interference light runs into when traveling quickly through a fiber optic cable can also be negated. By sending two beams of light rather than just one beam down a cable, the noise from the signals end up canceling each other out when the two beams meet at the other end. As a result, the team was able to push data through 7,954 miles of cable at 400 Gbps, which is 400 times faster than Google Fiber’s gigabit Internet that most of us don’t have access to."

Fallen TV cabling hurts NASCAR fans, scuttles race

As reported last month by Fox Sports' Lee Spencer, in North Carolina, NASCAR red-flagged the Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on the afternoon of Sunday, May 26, after a piece of broadcast TV cabling snapped across the arena's tri-oval onto the racetrack on Lap 121, resulting in injuries to some fans and damage to race cars.

Driver Kyle Busch, who was leading the race at the time of the accident, said, “Something fell apart and of course it fell apart on us.” Crew chief Dave Rogers added, “This is crazy if a TV camera just took us out.” The cabling literally sliced the right side of Busch's car behind the wheel, said the report.

More News:  

Broadcast video-over-LTE may arrive by 2014

Bexel to distribute Belden's Telecast Fiber Systems

Fox made an official statement following the incident: "At this time, we do not have a cause for the failure of the camera drive line that interrupted tonight’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and our immediate concern is with the injured fans."

The failed camera system in question reportedly consists of three ropes:  a drive rope which moves the camera back and forth, and two guide ropes on either side. "The drive rope failed near the Turn 1 connection and fell to the track," reported Fox's Spencer. "The camera itself did not come down because guide ropes acted as designed. A full investigation is planned, and use of the camera is suspended indefinitely."

Link:  Fallen cabling hurts fans, halts race (msn.foxsports.com)

See how DIY instructions for installing Cat 5e, Cat 6 Ethernet cable measure up

A step-by-step, do-it-yourself (DIY) installer guide to wiring one's residence with Cat 5e or Cat 6 Ethernet cable for home networking has been posted by the "tips, tricks and downloads" specialist Lifehacker.

Related:  HDBaseT whole-home network shown at CES

Written by a non-professional to the cabling trade and originally appearing on the creative project sharing site Instructables, the re-posted cabling installation instructions generate quite an interesting range of discussion in the article's appended comments section -- presenting a wealth of opportunity for armchair project management and/or second-guessing by the trained cabling professional ;)

See:  How To Wire Your House with Cat5e or Cat6 Ethernet Cable (From Lifehacker via Instructables)

Could Big Data and IP video uncover clues on Boston Marathon bombings?

April 16, 2013 -- Writing in USA Today, former national security analyst Scott Sigmund Gartner speculates on how Big Data (specifically, IP-based security and personal video) could be used to uncover clues on the Boston Marathon bombings.

"The lack of privacy in American big cities and at major public events is concerning," admits Sigmund Gartner. While owning up to the truth that by "analyzing trillions of images and data points, big data does more than threaten our privacy, it creates such detailed individual-level profiles that it literally strips us naked, exposing our values and desires to information's highest bidder," the analyst, who is currently a professor at Penn State's School of International Affairs and Dickinson School of Law, contends that "in this case, the same technology that reveals our shopping patterns and likely friends on Facebook may come through and help to expose a killer."

[Ed. note. -- It must come through -- if not, what is the point of this technology?]

The editorial goes on to place stock in recognition of big data's "positive side" -- noting how "by feeding thousands of cell phone, media and security camera video into massive computers capable of sorting faces, times and locations...authorities [will] put together a comprehensive picture of the comings and goings on Boylston Street."

"Crunching an unimaginable amount of data through social network, facial recognition, geographical information systems and other analytical algorithms...will reveal who seems to be there for the race, for business, or possibly for evil intent," continues the piece.

Link:  Big data could uncover clue on marathon: Column (usatoday.com)

Celebrating you

Well we’ve gone ahead and done it. We tabulated a list of 20 people (well, 18 people, one association and one profession as a whole), as nominated by our audience at large, who have made significant, positive impacts on the cabling trade over the past 20-plus years.

Creating lists like this one is kind of an old trick in the publishing/internet/media business. It’s a virtual guarantee that everyone who looks through it will think of at least one person who deserved to be included and wasn’t. (In many cases the reader’s reaction could be, “Hey, why wasn’t I on that list?!”) I say it’s an old trick because oftentimes one of the main objectives of those producing the list is to elicit just such a reaction. The more people talk about it, the more attention it gets. In today’s media environment, attention equals website page views. Website page views make our bosses happy. Hence the “old trick”—create a list just to get people talking.

That wasn’t the intent here. This list of the cabling industry’s positive contributors was conceived and developed as the most appropriate way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first issue of Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine. I’ve always kind of snarkily shaken my head at people who plan their own birthday parties. Actually, make that, adults who plan their own birthday parties. When you’re a kid, the most important days of the year are your birthday, the last day of school, and for us who celebrate it, Christmas. I’ve always kind of believed that once you turn oh, I don’t know, somewhere in your early 20s, the whole birthday thing should take a back seat. If someone else wants to throw you a party, great. Consider yourself a success for being important enough to someone that they want to do something nice for you on your birthday. But planning your own party kind of reminds me of the Brady Bunch episode when Peter planned a celebratory party for himself after he saved a girl from harm. Everyone he invited thought up reasons not to go. It was kind of sad, actually. In the end, the people who gathered to celebrate his good deed were his family members—the very same people who would throw him a birthday party because they care about him for who he is, and who were there for him before he was basking in the glow of his heroic act, and after that glow had faded.

So, as Cabling Installation & Maintenance was about to turn 20, the thought foremost in my mind was that I didn’t want to have a “Peter Brady Party” in which we spend pretty much all our energy asking, and answering, how great we are. That sentiment doesn’t come from any type of modesty, but rather from the reality that the cabling industry was humming along quite well before we showed up on the scene. Have we been an overall asset to the industry in our two decades of existence? I like to think so. But at the same time, we don’t embrace the pre-Copernicus mindset that the rest of the universe revolves around us. We’re happy to be one of the figures that floats around what’s really at the center of this industry—a combination of hard work and competence. And, I also like to think, whatever gravitational force we have helps to keep the whole thing in balance.

But it’s that core of the industry, the competence and hard work, that we have chosen to emphasize as a commemoration of our 20 years in business. Like any industry, ours has people, products and practices that span the full spectrum. Many times the structured cabling industry as an entity in and of itself has been challenged to garner an appropriate level of credibility, both from the information technology/networking industry of which it is an integral part, and from the construction industry of which it also is an integral part. While that challenge has been met and overcome in many cases, it remains dogged in others. Still, the complete “food chain” of players—from product design and manufacture, to distribution, through system specification, installation and maintenance—has the opportunity every day to fortify and enhance the credibility of the trade we call ours. In doing so, they (you) have earned recognition.

Yet the structured cabling industry doesn’t really have a platform to, a la Peter Brady, throw a party for itself. So on the occasion of our birthday (we’re in our early 20s now so the time for self-celebration has passed), we’re taking our hats off to all those who advance the industry in a positive direction—the few who we call out on our list as well as the many whose names don’t appear here but whose competence and hard work remain the central lifeblood of the industry. Our thanks to all of you.

Klein Tools looking for the oldest pair of its side-cutting pliers

If some of the tools in your tool belt are older than you, you just may be in luck. Klein Tools is holding a promotion through which it will provide a $2,500 cash prize as well as approximately $2,500 worth of its merchandise to the person who produces the oldest pair of the company's side-cutting pliers.
"Customers can see if their pliers are eligible by determining if their tool is the standard side-cutting type, bears the original Klein trademark and has the 'code markings' that will be found inside the handle," the company explained when announcing the promotion.
Specs and details of the contest, including tips on how to identify your pliers' manufacture date, can be found here.
Members of Klein's engineering staff will select the winning pair of pliers using the above-mentioned criteria. May 31 is the deadline by which entrants must submit a completed entry form and photos of the pliers being entered.
The company's channel sales manager Thomas Barton said, "Klein tools are known for their quality and durability. Our customers are very loyal and some have tools that have been handed down from one generation to another. So we thought it would be interesting to see exactly how long our pliers soldier on."