DIPOL Weekly Review - TV and SAT TV, CCTV, WLAN

Will femtocells save GSM operators?

The development of mobile telephony is connected with the increase in the number of subscribers, as well as the quantity of transmitted data. In the first stage of mobile telephony, the phones were used only for occasional calls. Currently, much lower prices of calls and other services, and changing habits of the growing number of subscribers who are switching from landlines to mobile phones, multiply the frequency and times of connections and generate much higher traffic.
But it is not the increasing number of conversations that causes concern of cellular operators, but the growing use of the Internet, including access to multimedia content on smartphones. This can soon generate traffic several times greater than currently realized. Since the transmission capacity of base stations is physically limited, it will cause problems with access to the network. It is already experienced by the participants of mass events, but the quickly growing number of smartphones will develop such problems in many places with large groups of people.

Femtocells, the devices which solve this problem, are known since 2005, but only in 2010 they began to be more popular. They reduce the distance the signal must wirelessly travel from the phone to the base station. Such a micro base station installed in a building and connected by wire to the backbone of the operator, relieves the existing cellular base stations and increases the coverage of the mobile network inside the building. The unused resources of the main base stations allow other people, staying outside the building, to smoothly connect to the cellular network. Many such micro base stations are installed in office buildings, shopping centers, etc., significantly reducing the network load of traditional base stations.

The breakthrough in the use of femtocells came in 2010, with increase of about 300% compared to 2009. They are currently used by many operators, including Sprint (USA), StarHub (Singapore), Verizon (USA), Vodafone (Great Britain, Spain, Qatar, Greece), AT&T (USA), SFR (France), Docomo (Japan), China Unicom, Optimus (Portugal), SingTel (Singapore), SoftBank (Japan), KDDI (Japan), Movistar (Spain), T-Mobile (Great Britain), Moldtelecom (Moldova).

The blue color indicates the countries where cellular operators use femtocells

Informa Telecoms &Media expects that by 2014 the number of femtocells deployed in the world will rise to 49 million, with about 25 million being sold in 2014 alone.
The interest in the development of cellular networks by adding femtocells is reflected by the number of the members of the Femto Forum - the organization which currently includes 77 equipment providers and 58 mobile operators worldwide.

Vatican Radio - is "electrosmog" harmful to humans?

In 1931, Vatican Radio started broadcasting its programs from Santa Maria di Galeria - a town near Rome. For a long time, there are discussions about the impact of the broadcasting activity on the health status of the residents of neighboring towns.
In July last year, a group of experts headed by Professor Andrea Micheli from the National Tumor Institute in Milan, in a 300 page report found a direct effect of radiation on the death of 19 children in the years 1980 to 2003. The children died of leukemia and lymphoma.
However, conclusions derived from statistical research, presented by American Journal of Epidemiology, are just opposite to those of Professor Andrea Micheli. The average incidence of these cancers in Europe is 1.4 children per ten thousand. The area of exposure, i.e. within a radius of about 10 km, has population of about 50 000 people, so the incidence of cancer in over 20 years is below the European average. A similar view has another team, led by Professor Umberto Veronesi.

The only thing all parties agree on - due to the lack of previous studies there is no reliable reference material. Nowadays, it is difficult to find populations living in industrialized areas not exposed to the influence of electromagnetic radiation, so we don't know whether the European average can be used as a reference or not.

The seat of Vatican Radio

TERRA headend in a hotel complex.

The owner of a hotel complex offering wedding services has decided to equip the property with TV system distributing DVB-T and satellite channels.

The main components of the complex are the marriage hall building with rooms for guests (with 25 outlets) and the hotel, situated 1.5 km away (with 60 outlets).
The investor already at the the construction phase required to connect both buildings to form a single network, combining CCTV, computer network, SMATV system. This connection is possible due to multi-fiber optical cable.
Satellite channels are distributed by MMH-3000 TERRA headend system.

Installation diagram of the television system in the complex, consisting of two fully integrated subsystems

The MMH-3000 R8170 headend allows to receive 9 satellite channels (possible extension by next 7 channels). The signals from the headend are amplified by the set of channel amplifiers - ZG Alcad - and combined with amplified signals of digital terrestrial television (DVB-T).

The headend is located in the marriage hall building. Due to the long distance to the hotel, the natural solution has been application of optical transmitter and receiver.
The investor has chosen reliable equipment from TERRA - optical transmitter MOS-211A R81720 (6 dBm) and optical node OD-120 R81724. High output level of the node (113 dBuV) allows for distribution of the signals via copper coaxial cable to the 60 outlets in the hotel, without any additional amplifiers.

An important issue is monitoring of the nodes of the system. Using the PCS-200 R81716 module, the headend can be remotely monitored by the technician, who also can remotely adjust some parameters without physical access to the facilities. Similarly, the technician can remotely monitor status of the OD-120 R81724 node, connected to the local network via its Ethernet port.

Remote video monitoring over the Internet.

The installer was to ensure remote video monitoring with the use of analog PTZ camera. There was no need for continuous recording, however the user wanted to capture screenshots and short video clips.

The installer suggested to use Ultinet 701 K2140 video server and PH-10H M1192 camera. The camera is equipped with SONY Interline Transfer CCD with horizontal resolution 500 TVL (color) and 570 TVL (B/W). The ULTINET video server uses H.264 video compression and can transmit 4CIF images at 25 fps (PAL).

Remote video monitoring over the Internet

The video server is connected to the network using external IP address.
At the office, the computer runs iVMS4000 software to preview the video and capture images from the ULTINET video server. The software allows to control the PTZ camera via screen control panel.
The investor can also monitor the camera image at home through Internet Explorer. Access to the camera, both through the software application and IE, is protected by a password. If needed in the future, the video stream from the Ultinet 701 video server can be recorded on a continuous basis, with the use of another free application.

High functionality and reliability for a low price, compared to IP video surveillance, make this installation a leading example for all who want to create a single point of observation with strong monitoring capacity provided by PTZ camera.

Tests of IR illuminators - Redbeam series in cooperation with 0.3 and 0.03 lx cameras.

The equipment used:

Click on a picture to enlarge it

As these tests show, the range of an IR illuminator is highly dependent on the sensitivity of the camera used. Visual observations have been confirmed by the automatic procedures of the DVR ULTIMAX-104 M71040, which detect the moving object in the picture at the distance of 60 meters (with the more sensitive camera), and only at 20 m with the second camera. It is worth noting that lighting the scene with the more powerful illuminator and using the less sensitive camera - provides similar results like application of the weaker IR illuminator and the more sensitive camera.

Video surveillance for pharmacies - ACTi cameras.

One of the latest deployments of ACTi systems is video surveillance for a chain of pharmacies. The solution has been designed to provide optimum solution for this sector.
The system for each drugstore can employ up to 16 megapixel day/night IP cameras ACM-5611 K1512. The reason for choosing this model is high resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels and PoE - each camera is connected via single UTP cable, which significantly reduces wiring costs.

The biggest advantage of the created IP CCTV system is the centralization of surveillance. The operator, using ACTi NVR management software, can watch live video from the cameras and play back recordings from all locations. It is especially important when the stores are closed and can be be protected only by one employee. The manager of each store can supervise it from anywhere in the world, using Internet Explorer.
The number of thefts has dropped dramatically, the system has also increased employee productivity and general safety of the stores.

General concept of the system

PoE adapter with leads for LANs.

The PoE set N9205 contains two passive devices shown in the picture. They are equipped with RJ-45 and 2.1/5.5 mm (power) connectors, and prepared for work with majority of popular WLAN devices (TP-Link, Linksys, Planet, Mikrotik), as well as other IP devices, like PIXORD cameras. By using such an adapter, it is enough to connect to the device only one UTP cable, instead of two (UTP cable + power cable).

PoE adapter for LANs
N9205

We have tested cooperation of the PoE adapter with TP-Link Tl-WR543G N2955, using the original AC/DC adapter (output: 9V/0.8A) included in the set. We also used 15 m UTP cable, terminated with RJ-45 connectors. The cable had no negative impact on the operation of the device or the quality of data transmission.

Example application of the PoE adapter

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