The phrase 'fibre-optic technology' conjures visions of information speeding around the world at the speed of light, of high-tech data centres and previously unimagined capabilities in communications. What it does not evoke is visions of connectors. But without being able to connect fibres effectively, a network just wouldn't exist. [ + ]

As many electrical contractors are aware, our industry has experienced a number of alarming product recalls of late. These include the recent Avanco brand DC isolators and the Infinity brand cable recalls.

Steve Harvey, Engineering Manager, Distributed Coverage and Capacity Solutions (DCCS), Commscope will be speaking at the Comms Connect Sydney 2014 conference, being held this week from 18-19 June. [ + ]

Screen Australia, the Commonwealth Government agency, moved into a new office at 45 Jones street, Ultimo, with an aim to increase staff comfort and reduce operating costs. The building was used as a wool store until the 1950s before being converted to premium offices in 2005.

Mount Pleasant Shopping Centre is one of two major retail centres serving the city of Mackay, Queensland, but was facing a significant problem when it came to energy efficiency. [ + ]

SolarMax provides string inverters for the solar plant on Switzerland's biggest football stadium. [ + ]

The Marine Apartments is an eight-storey, 43-apartment complex, set back from Port Philip Bay. The 16-year-old building has two levels of car park at ground and basement level. The owner corporation of the building had been actively seeking ways to reduce the building's energy consumption for close to five years. [ + ]

Rising demand for mobile broadband services and the evolution of cellular networks toward higher capacities and new air interfaces create a need to evolve existing synchronisation network architectures. Driven by the rollout of TD-LTE, public access small cells and LTE-Advanced functionalities such as enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) and coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission, radio base station clocks are now required to operate in phase with sub-microsecond accuracy in addition to legacy frequency synchronisation.

Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a way to both transmit and store electricity in a single lightweight copper wire. [ + ]

The recent recall of faulty Avanco and PV Power branded DC solar isolators provides a harsh reminder about the importance of buying from reputed suppliers. [ + ]

Following the completion of trials at Currumbin RSL Club on the Gold Coast, the club projects that retrofitting the Zorro area light in the club's outdoor car park areas could save up to 58% in energy costs. [ + ]

Philips, FC Bayern Munich and their home stadium Allianz Arena have formed a partnership that is said to make the stadium the largest in Europe to feature dynamic animated light shows. [ + ]

Today's servers are shipping with 10 Gbps copper ports while power consumption and heat dissipation have been reduced to acceptable levels. As global demand for higher speed and additional data bandwidth continues unabated, the IEEE and some cabling groups have started a project called 'Next Generation Ethernet', or in simple terms - 40 Gbps over copper. [ + ]

The RET review may have cast a cloud of insecurity over the viability, investment options and future of the renewable energy industry, but Daman Cole*, Yingli Solar, believes that solar energy has a bright future. Read on to find out why. [ + ]

Currently, 10 Gbps is the going data rate in enterprise networks, with state-of-the-art data centres introducing 40 Gbps. Ongoing development of high-speed ethernet means development of 100 Gbps is well underway and 400 Gbps options are already being explored. [ + ]