deu TELE-audiovision 1311

1. Gary Stafford is responsible for
GlobalInvacom's business development.
He came up with the idea in 2007 to
distribute the satellite IF of an LNB via fibre
optic cables. From there came the FibreIRS
products.
2. Matt Presdee looks after their Technical
support for the sales department
and is very familiar with the wiring of
GlobalInvacom's devices. Here we see
him on the balcony of GlobalInvacom's
headquarters in Stevenage north of
London. Using a number of satellite dishes
(equipped, of course, with GlobalInvacom
fibre optic LNBs) he tests their products.
3. Dr. Andrew Collar is especially familiar
with optical technology. Here he is
performing experiments with an optical
polarization controller to determine the
system performance characteristics of an
optical system.
4. Mike Jones is one of the principle
technical designers for the optical system
1
In 2008 the first fibre optic LNB was
introduced by GlobalInvacom. This
made it possible to carry a satellite signal
from a fibre optic LNB across miles
of fibre optic cable and then, even more
importantly, split it multiple times without
any concern for signal attenuation.
Five years have gone by since then so
we wanted to know how things were
going with fibre optic technology; has it
been successful?
The answer to this question is a resounding
YES! This is true even though
this involves a completely new technology;
distributing satellite signals
via coaxial cable is still standard today.
Coax technology has long been a
proven method and has been in use for
more than 100 years. A fundamentally
new technology would be difficult to
push through - it would have to have
many advantages and these advantages
would have to be obvious.
Sure enough, Ivan Horrocks, GlobalInvacom‘s
Sales Director, says the
FibreIRS system has been a great success:
„In the five years since its introduction,
we estimate that this technology
has been used to connect in excess
of two million households.“
Over the past several years GlobalInvacom
has continued to develop this
fibre optic technology under the name
FibreIRS (Fibre Integrated Reception
System). Especially interesting is the
expansion to terrestrial TV signals such
that today GlobalInvacom‘s system can
be simultaneously used for satellite signals
as well as terrestrial TV signals.
Ivan Horrocks explains to us how this
all got started: „Gary Stafford came
up with the original idea.“ He runs the
Business Development section and began
working on an LNB system that
distributed signals via fibre optic cable.
„Our first FibreIRS product was still fed
directly from the LNB and distributed
the signal through a 16-way split regime.“
An improved model was introduced
in 2009 where the LNB signal
could be distributed so a maximum of
32 users could be connected directly to
the fibre optic satellite signal.
„In 2010 we expanded the system
again by introducing the ODU32 which
allowed terrestrial TV signals to be
added. In 2011/2012 we introduced the
wholband splitter which allowed us to
combine 4 X ODU32’s together catapulting
the maximum number of subscribers
to 256. But this was still not
enough.”
But it still wasn‘t enough: „Our newest
system is the just recently devel-
oped O2E Converter: with this system
we can connect sixty four 64-output
ODU32’s.“ This results in an incredible
64 x 64 = 4096 connections, all fed
from a single LNB that can be installed
on a single satellite antenna installed
in an optimal location since distances
are not a factor when using a fibre optic
signal distribution system.
GlobalInvacom FibreIRS product
sales have been increasing 20% year
after year. „Of course, this is subject to
fluctuations“, we learn from Ivan Horrocks,
„Our largest market is northern
Europe. There we sell 40 -50% of
all our fibre optic products. Another
important market is MENA (the Middle
East and North Africa), 20% of
our fibre optic products are shipped
there.“ He sees the strongest growth
in Southeast Asia: „Sales have greatly
increased there. Right now it encompasses
about 30% of our fibre optic
products.“
GlobalInvacom‘s best-selling fibre optic
product is the Quattro model. „Multiswitches
are connected to these and
are therefore best suited for smaller
communities.“ The highest growth can
be seen with the Quad model: „Four
receivers can be directly connected to
this model and is the best way to go
with individual reception in homes (Direct-to-Home).“
As you can see, more
and more private homes as well as
the installation in single apartments or
houses are opting for GlobalInvacom‘s
fibre optic system.
And there‘s even more news from
GlobalInvacom. Business Development
Manager Gary Stafford tells us more:
„In 2012 we acquired the two produc-
192 TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine — 11-12/2013 — www.TELE-audiovision.com