Comba Telecom nabs wireless solution contract with Bangkok Metro Railway

The Bangkok Metro Public Company Limited (BMCL) has tapped Comba Telecom to provide an end-to-end wireless solution for 2G and 3G voice and data communications. Comba's wireless solution will provide coverage for the entire length of the BMCL's underground railway network.

Comba Telecom is known for its multi-operator base station coverage solutions, which cover single and multiple bands. Comba solutions are designed to be rapidly rolled out and ensure high performance while keeping visual perception low.

The Company also offers a versatile ultra-wide band multiple ports solution that allow different systems and different frequency bands to share antenna systems.

The BMCL's Metropolitan Rapid Transit (MRT) in Bangkok is comprised of 18 stations, concourses, tunnels, platforms, and the concourses' retail stores. It serves more than 240,000 passengers on a daily basis.

BMCL has complete control of all commercial activities and developments on its premises. The Thai company owns and operates its own neutral host network, which it pledged in support of updated wireless telecommunications services.

Comba Telecom will modernize and expand BMCL's legacy 2G system into a multi-system (2G/3G) active distributed antenna system (DAS) solution.

Eric Ng, general manager of Southeast Asia for Comba Telecom, explained that the Company implemented a modular DAS solution for the Bangkok MRT. The scalable system is easily expandable and future proof, allowing BMCL to open up new subway lines or implement 4G technologies according to its future requirements.

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Good news for Sepura: FCC supports TETRA in US

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently ruled in support of Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) in the United States. This is great news for digital radio specialist Sepura plc, one of many such companies eyeing a slice of the lucrative US market pie.

Sepura believes that the FCC announcement is good news for numerous organizations in the business, industry, and land transportation sectors. Those organizations have been contemplating switching to TETRA digital radio communications, a standard that has been adopted in more than 125 countries.

TETRA is a spectrally efficient digital technology that accomodates four voice (and data) paths in each 25 kHz channel to achieve 6.25 kHz voice path efficiency. This allowed TETRA to met and exceeded the 12.5 kHz voice path “narrowbanding” efficiency standard set by the FCC for the 450-470 MHz segment of the UHF band requirements. The FCC was also satisfied with TETRA’s interference protection ability.

According to Sepura's CEO, Gordon Watling, the FCC ruling reassures potential US customers regarding the benefits of TETRA digital communication solutions. Sepura, the TETRA+ Critical Communications Association, and its worldwide partners have been offering the proven, open communications standard for global customers. Now the 9 million professional mobile radio users in the US market will also be able to enjoy the same quality of communications and productivity.

In addition to being an expert on the TETRA standard, Sepura offers mobiles/gateways, repeaters, and other wireless communications products, such as its widely-used STP8000 and SRG3000 series. It also offers 3T infrastructure solutions.

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Globecomm designing broadband wireless infrastructure for Somcable

Globecomm Systems Inc. announced that it will be developing a new broadband wireless infrastructure for Somaliland-based Somcable Limited. The contract is worth $2.7 million.

Somcable aims to create the framework for a carrier class communications service provider in the autonomous region (or sovereign state if you ask them) of Somaliland. It entered a contract with Globecomm for the design, engineering, and provision of a broadband wireless infrastructure that can deliver fiber speeds.

Globecomm will install high speed wireless technology to facilitate the delivery of scalable bandwidth to Somaliland citizens. The company expects to complete these contracts by the end of the third quarter of 2013.

Somcable will use that infrastructure to deliver voice, Internet, TV, and video communication services to its subscribers at minimal entry level cost. Globecomm's design will leave enough leeway to expand Somcable's wireless network in the future.

According to Michael Cothill, Chief Executive of Somcable, a state-of-the-art broadband wireless infrastructure will uplift Somaliland's profile will uplift its profile, allowing the region to participate in world-class multimedia communications.

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UNSi finishes expanding Midwestern Carrier Ethernet networks, looks to future

Now that it's finished upgrading its Dallas and Denver POPs into full border gateway interconnects (BGI) -not to mention adding a new POP BGI in St. Louis, MO- United Network Services, Inc. is looking to the future of Carrier Ethernet in the Midwestern United States.

UNSi has been expanding all summer. Back in June, in order to strengthen its position in the enterprise and carrier markets, UNSi acquired IPNetZone Communications. That acquisition gives UNSi a total of 18 POPs in the United States, along with more than 150 NNIs and partnerships with almost 2,000 network providers.

UNSi is optimistic about the markets for MPLS and Ethernet services. According to Allan Schwartz, UNSi senior vice president of strategic planning and business development, the company sensed significant opportunity in establishing connection locations throughout the Midwest.

Cell site backhaul has been determined to be a growth market for Carrier Ethernet. Customers have realized how flexible and affordable Ethernet services are, and they're  now demanding Ethernet services starting at 50 Mbps. Most operators are actively rolling out 4G/LTE as fast as they can to keep up with demand.

Mr. Schwartz explained that UNSI's network was built with Carrier Ethernet in mind. Instead of rebuilding TDM networks from scratch, UNSI chose to augment existing networks with next-generation Ethernet and VPLS capabilities.

James Karimi, SVP and CTO, cited future challenges that UNSi would encounter as its networks grew. One of them is simplifying the implementation of OAM (Operations, Administrations, and Maintenance.) The complicated process can be a bother for monitoring services that need to cross carrier networks. And when you're a company like UNSi, who has partnerships with thousands of network operators...

To that end, SVP Karimi was of the opinion that Carrier Ethernet equipment manufacturers should perform RFC 2544 testing all types of switches, be they core switches or premise switches.

Telecommunications port: Australia

The Adelaide teleport is one of two facilities operated by an independent satellite company in Australia. Located in Southern Australia, the facility uplinks to 8 geostationary satellites across both the Ku band and C  band spectrum. Telecommunications port are the crucial earth stations connecting to the satellites and transmitting and receiving signals to end-users using VSAT systems. As such, they are often highly-secured facilities, and in the case of the Adelaide Teleport, considered as Military Accredited Global Access Points.

Radisys debuts 40G solution for Intel Data Plane Development Kit

Radisys Corporation introduced the very first single 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) controller solution for the Intel Data Plane Development Kit (Intel DPDK.)

Packet Processing functions often require discrete NPUs, co-processors, FPGAs, and other special-purpose hardware. But a combination of advanced software and improvements made to Intel architecture processors have presented a new alternative to developers.

As a member of the Intel Intelligent Systems Alliance, Radisys provides embedded wireless infrastructure solutions. Its GbE controller allows users to rely on one-blade architecture to consolidate all their Application, Control and Packet Processing workloads on Intel Architecture (IA.)

According to Radisys, its 40G solution offers high throughput that can boost the Intel DPDK to perform beyond its current functionality limit of 10G. Radisys' 40G DPDK solution will allow Telecom Equipment Manufacturers (TEMs) to considerably decrease their cost-per-bit for Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and security applications.

In addition, TEMs can reduce overall complexity and streamline their development of applications by using native 40G support. This can save up to two years of development time and attached costs.

Andrew Alleman, Vice President, Platform Engineering at Radisys, said that “Our solution provides TEMs with a scalable solution with true 40G performance, making this an ideal solution for a variety of form factors from ATCA, Rackmount Servers and Network Appliances, and even to software.”

Mr. Alleman added that “In addition to enhancing the functionality of the Intel DPDK, we at Radisys eagerly adopted the solution within our own wireless infrastructure platforms – including the RMS-220 network appliance – continuing our focus on simplifying our customers’ development environment.”

Radisys recently debuted the RMS-220 carrier-grade network appliance platform. The solution is a highly scalable design based on server-class Intel processors and innovative next-generation technology. The RMS-220 will help meet increasing demands for Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and networking applications in mobile backhaul networks.

ORBIT ADAMS communications manager gets certification from Russian authority

In a recent statement, ORBIT Communication Systems announced that its Airborne Digital Audio Management System (ADAMS) has received certification from the Aviation Register of Interstate Aviation Committee (ARIAC), the civil aviation authority in Russia. Armed with ARIAC certification, ORBIT can now install the commercial version of its communications management system onboard the An-148/158 airframes.

ORBIT added that ARIAC's approval helped it secure a major contract from a Russian company shortly after certification. The company expects more Russian orders for its ADAMS communication systems.

ARIAC's certification procedure is a very comprehensive and demanding process. Russian authorities teamed up with Israel's Civil Aviation Authority (CAAI) to certify the ADAMS system.

The Airborne Digital Management Systems manages the complex communications found in medium and large crew aircraft. It can also serve transportation or cargo applications.

ORBIT's modular COTS system supports up to 20 users, 16 radios, 31 receivers, six recording outputs, discrete lines, and configurable internal intercom networks. The ADAMS system can also provided with a PA system.

According to Ofer Greenberger, CEO, ORBIT has achieved significant penetration of the Russian civil aviation market. He noted that additional possible customers have approached ORBIT for orders after the company secured Russian certification. He expects that more and more Russian companies will adopt ORBIT's systems.

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