Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/1096507
Broadcasters Show Daily Monday, April 8, 2019 8 Walton Introduces Portable Radome An interview with Ray Powers, Director of Sales and Marketing, Walton De-Ice (W.B. Walton Enterprises, Inc.). BSD: Tell our readers about Walton De- Ice. RP: Walton De-Ice designs and manu- factures the broadest line of equipment available for preventing the accumula- tion of snow, ice, rain, sand and debris on satellite earth station antennas. We help broadcasters, MVPDs and satellite networks protect their signals from the effects of weather on earth station dishes. For example, our prod- ucts help protect 24/7 program signals serving an estimated 90 million-plus TV homes in North America alone. That includes major uplinks and down- links from top basic and pay cable net- works, U.S. broadcast networks, a 'who's who' of top global TV program- mers, as well as DBS operators and top MVPDs. We're also introducing the industry's first Portable Radome for protecting mobile or transportable satellite systems from extreme weather conditions. BSD: Compare your products and their technology against the current market. RP: The unique and patented Walton Ice Quake invention is a system that enhances the reliability of a passive Snow Shield antenna cover by shedding off snow before ice forms, and optionally melting ice, for antennas from 0.6 to 6.3 meters. With our Ice Quake system, TV stations and cable TV satellite downlink head ends achieve up to 100-fold energy savings compared to using conventional anti-ice solutions. Head ends can achieve up to 20 times less data loss using Walton products for some kinds of services. Our Snow Shield antenna cover sheds snow to prevent ice buildup using an architec- tural fabric that is virtually invisible to RF signals. A station can use it as a pas- sive Snow Shield cover, or combine it with a gas or electric heater that seals in hot air for maximum per- formance as only Walton De-Ice can. Walton's unique Hot Air De-Ice design with a plenum mounts behind antennas from 3.7 to 32 meters, providing the most economical, reliable systems on the mar- ket. Uniform surface heating minimizes distortion losses with Walton's solution, unlike electric pad or heat tape anti-ice systems. Electric, natural gas or liquid propane heater options can best fit a broadcaster's energy economics. BSD: What's in store for Walton at NAB? RP: At NAB, we're excited to showcase our newest product – the Walton Portable Radome. The Walton Portable Radome covers and protects transportable satellite uplink dishes from the signal-busting and damaging effects of hostile weather con- ditions, including blizzards, ice, rain, wind, hail, dust and sand storms, so satellite links can stay on-air in extreme conditions. For protecting remote production, news, temporary uplinks, and broadband data terminal satellite uplink antennas, the Walton Portable Radome withstands 85-mile-per-hour (136kph) wind loads. An operator can quickly assemble our lightweight, airline baggage check- able radome with no tools. It assembles in less than an hour, unlike conventional radomes in its size class, which can take days of crew labor and a crane to install. In that sense, it makes a radome possible in situations where it was not possible before. Another advantage is that our self-supporting structure requires no con- tinuous power, unlike inflatable antennas (ISA) antenna covers or radomes. Visit W. B. Walton Enterprises, Inc. at booth #OE20052. For more information, call 951.683.0930, go to www.de-ice.com or email sales@de-ice.com. ANT BLAZE for the Enterprise Wireless Connection: Herman Miller Case Study By Chris Pettigrew, ANT Wireless Product Manager at Garmin Canada Inc. The Internet of Things consumer revolu- tion is driven by the unprecedented deliv- ery of information. Data is conveniently untethered thanks to innovations in wire- less connectivity and a comprehensive internet infrastructure. For enterprises, connectivity is more complicated. Challenges around scaling are among the first obstacles encountered by enterprises looking to capitalize on mon- itoring their data. As a proven, highly efficient technology that can operate hun- dreds of nodes at once, ANT BLAZE delivers on this challenge. Case Study In 2017, global design manufacturer Herman Miller introduced Live OS, a system of smart, cloud-connected fur- nishings. To date, the system includes sit- to-stand desks, fixed height desks and the Aeron Chair. Designed to enable person- alized experiences for employees and provide organizations with secure, real- time, aggregated activity data, Live OS is delivering a more intuitive and active experience at work. Challenge Herman Miller had highly specific net- work requirements to deploy Live OS to customers across the globe. Considering both the dense and sparse layouts of most office environments, they sought a tech- nology that could support more than 300 nodes on a single network and devices with a battery life of more than six years. They also required scalability, and the ability to add new node types at any given time. To deploy their technology, Herman Miller knew it needed a solution that could send and receive data from the cloud without using a customer's internal IT infrastructure, but that also required Bluetooth Low Energy connections. They knew a desk-to-desk mesh solution could achieve this and would minimize the number of cellular gateways needed to backhaul data. After several unsuccessful attempts with their solu- tion provider and Bluetooth-only options, Herman Miller turned to Garmin's enterprise-friendly ANT BLAZE solution. Solution By deploying ANT BLAZE mesh tech- nology on every smart desk, Herman Miller established a complete network of connected devices, allowing for other wireless Live OS products to transmit data via the same ANT BLAZE back- bone. Since ANT BLAZE can operate independently of existing, on-premise IT infrastructure, they were able to config- ure Live OS data to be sent directly to an ANT-enabled gateway, without requiring the use of an organization's IT network. As a result, customer organizations can monitor and control their Live OS processes, equipment and assets, no matter the complexity of their office environment. Benefits Since implementing ANT BLAZE technology (and its associated mesh libraries), Herman Miller has been able to produce sensors that last years on bat- tery power. Mesh functionality provided the freedom to implement the Live OS solution without interfering with existing corporate networks. They have also gained access to firmware-over-the-air capabilities, mean- ing Live OS devices or accessories never need to be plugged in. Finally, they experienced significant cost and time savings. As an out-of-the box solution that doesn't require any fur- ther, arduous development work, Herman Miller was able to focus its resources on product development and innovation. For more information, go to www .thisisant.com/blaze or email marketing @thisisant.com. W3C Launches Work to Improve Web Advertising Experience Large numbers of websites are funded in part or wholly by advertising. The largest web advertising company reports quar- terly revenues of over $25 billion in U.S. dollars. Website owners receive a per- centage of that revenue in exchange for carrying adverts. Commerce, advertising, financial transactions and the security and infra- structure needed to support them was not part of the original web design. The advertising industry has developed meth- ods to track viewers, some of which many consider to be overly invasive, as more users run software to block adver- tising; however, publishers of web pages see their revenue falling and have started to use more invasive adverts and in greater numbers, damaging users' per- ception of the web. The W3C invites participation in a business group on "Web advertising by design" for consideration of features and changes to the web platform that could better and more efficiently support web advertising. Although the advertising industry has taken a number of steps to improve, including both guidelines for controlling the sizes of adverts and work on reducing click fraud, solutions need to be integrated into the Open Web Platform, including: makers of web browsers, search engines and other technologies need to be able to offer good performance and a good expe- rience; advertisers need reliable informa- tion about how many people saw their adverts, and control over audience to show them to people interested in the prod- ucts and services offered; ad networks need reliable analytics for advertisers – to know what sort of ads to deliver to any given person on any par- ticular webpage, without compromising identity or privacy; website owners need to pay their hosting bills and to afford good quality information and services for their visitors; organizations are still need- ed that can rate websites and provide aggregated visitors analytics, both for advertisers and website owners; adverts, like other web content, must be accessible, not least because of legislation requiring sites to be accessible, but also because the web is for everyone; users need to be con- fident adverts are shown securely, without malicious code or viruses, even when interactive; and, third-party advert-block- ing software needs to be overcome by a web platform basic facility letting users limit the adverts they see, have control over the subject areas, in a secure and private man- ner – although there may be a market for extended capabilities of third-party add-ons. In addition, there are new work opportunities at W3C, including: ability for a webpage to report back when a par- ticular region has been scrolled or swiped into view, optionally being visible for a specific amount of time; anonymous, pri- vate, secure credentials held in user- selected third-party wallets; and, web payment methods allowing technologies for less intrusive in-ad purchase systems. For more information about W3C's web advertising work, see the W3C business group at www.w3.org/community/ web-adv or contact w3t-pr@w3.org.