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Aftermarket Daily News Tuesday, October 30, 2018 3 4 Top Reasons to Give to Cell Phones for Soldiers By Rob Bergquist, Founder and Director, Cell Phones for Soldiers We're proud of the work we do at Cell Phones For Soldiers to connect and sup- port our troops and veterans in need. Since 2004, we have worked to make a difference in the lives of the brave men and women who serve (and have served) our country in uniform. And we couldn't do it without our donors. Thousands of individuals and organ- izations have powered Cell Phones For Soldiers to help others by donating old cell phones and other mobile devices and raising money for our cause. Donors understand the meaningful work we've done for the last 14 years, and we'd like to share some of the reasons you should give to Cell Phones For Soldiers to help us continue our mission. We recognize the challenges our veterans face. The transition to civilian life can be men- tally, physically and emotionally stress- ful, and veterans are unemployed at a higher rate than non-veterans. Sometimes that means they can't meet financial obli- gations – utility bills, rent, communica- tion costs – and need a little boost. Our Helping Heroes Home program has pro- vided one-time grants to more than 3,000 veterans. We believe that our veterans are owed a lifetime of support for their work protecting our country. We help our troops stay connected with their loved ones. Though international calling is less of a hassle than it was when we first started, many deployed troops find that having a personal phone is impossible during a tour, either because of cost or security reasons. Our Minutes That Matter program has given more than 350 million min- utes (and counting!) on call- ing cards to deployed men and women so they can call home. Maintaining connections with home during a deployment is critical to morale and to reas- suring families at home. We're green! Earlier this year, Cell Phones for Soldiers received our R2 certification which allows us to receive, sort, test, data erase and responsibly downstream donated devices. Cell Phones for Soldiers both repurposes used devices and gives them to veterans in need and recycles them for their valuable parts that can be sold and reused. This serves a number of environmentally friendly purposes: it keeps electronic waste from landfills, where harmful materials can cause damage to human health and fragile ecosystems; recycling plastic helps us do our part to keep non-biodegradable material out of our oceans; and recycling the rare earth metals used in electronic devices reduces the need for mining. To date, we have recycled more than 15 million mobile devices! It's easy to give. You can contribute to Cell Phones For Soldiers by donating money directly and securely through our website, or by sending us your old cell phones and mobile devices. You can either print off a shipping label and send in your recycled items or find one of our more than 4,000 drop-off sites by doing a location search. Cell Phones For Soldiers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and we rely on your tax-deductible donations to connect our country's bravest men and women. Even a small donation makes a difference – give today! For more information, call Rob Bergquist at 678.580.1976, visit www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com or email info@cellphonesforsoldiers.com. Optical Zonu Streamlines Base Station Hotel Connectivity with ZONUConnect By Gary Grimes, Director Sales RF Solutions, Optical Zonu Corp. With the U.S. wireless service providers moving towards centralized network architectures, connecting to in-building and outdoor distributed antenna sys- tems in the area often becomes a chal- lenge. Base station manufacturers can offer only a CPRI fiber connection to Remote Radio Heads (RRH). However, available fiber can be scarce and expen- sive. Remote Radio Heads have a fairly large footprint in both space and power consumption, which costs money. This approach also puts the service providers' base station RRHs at a remote location to which they do not have free access. With ZONUConnect™, Optical Zonu offers a streamlined connectivity between any base station configuration and any DAS that minimizes the fiber count as needed with much higher effi- ciency than any other solution, includ- ing CPRI-to-RRH. It minimizes the total equipment needed, which results in the lowest cost and rack space. The RF-Over-Fiber solution allows the serv- ice provider to keep all its base station equipment in the centralized facility with 24/7 access and a common, battery backed-up power plant. This universal, efficient connectivity greatly simplifies the work for network maintenance engi- neering. This also ensures a clear sys- tem responsibility demarcation point for the service provider and the DAS owner. The economy of ZONUConnect becomes more dra- matic as the num- ber of bands sup- ported increases. The rack space and fiber required to support three bands is the same as for five bands, and the price tag is much the same. All other solutions become bigger and more expensive for every new service added. This makes ZONUConnect the choice for future-proof interconnec- tions. In addition to transporting multiple bands and sectors over a low fiber count, ZONUConnect includes an Ethernet data connection between the sites over the common fiber. This permits full system self-discovery during computer set up and remote SNMP monitoring and con- trol. The Fiber Transport also features an optional optical switch feature. This per- mits the carrier to route the services to an auto-redundant fiber path. The ZONUConnect Ethernet connection incor- porates Optical Zonu's digi- tal SFPs with built-in micro OTDR. If the data path is lost, the unit immediately reports the location of the break in the fiber, enabling a short service outage time. Optical Zonu's ZONUConnect is the only base station-to-DAS intercon- nection truly optimized for any network. It has a proven track record in every service provider's network to every DAS with connections from one sector to large DAS deployments in stadiums, arenas, convention centers, hotels, race- ways, hospitals and government build- ings. Its efficiency has been exploited for connections from 250 feet to over 10 miles. For more information, visit www.optical zonu.com.