ACT Cablestream Ltd, one of the five divisions within Apricot Computers Plc’s ACT Systems Integration Group, is a stand-alone entity that, in the words of its managing director Bill Driscoll, will live and die networking. The stress on the separate identity of Cablestream follows the restructuring of Apricot that has seen ITL’s networking operations, previously submerged within the overall structure of ITL, emerge as a business unit per se as part of a new Apricot that aims to get half of its revenues from software and services – a figure amounting to some UKP80m. Driscoll reckons that ACT Cablestream in sharp contrast to the old Apricot – trades with an image of conservatism and perhaps over-prudence, arguing that this image is more fitting for the type of large network installation and design that Cablestream deals in: more often than not, Cablestream’s clients – such as the Bank of England, British Aerospace and Ford – have committed themselves to a hefty networking investment, and the resulting networks are often, as the Americans say, mission-critical – crucial to the running of the business. Cablestream networks are based around the open systems interconnection standards, and, to a greater or lesser extent, all incorporate elements of fault-tolerance, such as duplexing electronics, dual power supplies and disaster recovery features, because as Driscoll says, people have realised that the network itself is the main reason for failure. Now, to respond to the growing interest in fibre, Cablestream is offering the ONline concentrator from its Waltham, Massachusetts distributor, Chipcom Corp, a device designed to enable organisations to incorporate nets based around the Fibre Distributed Data Interface standard for fibre as when the need arises. Aimed at large corporate networks, the ONline concentrator enables up to three networks – Ethernet, Token Ring or fibre – to operate concurrently; a total of 128 unshielded twisted pair and 64 fibre connections are supported by each concentrator. Fault tolerant – or rather, limited downtime features such as dual power supplies, fault tolerant tranceivers, and back-up cable links are included to ensure that critical applications can continue in the event of a network failure – Cablestream claims that all that is lost when the disaster recovery features are called in is a certain amount of performance. Cablestream also supplies a number of Chipcom products, including a fibre optic-Ethernet network system known as Ornet. Apart from open systems interconnection, fibre and fault tolerance, one area Cablestream is looking at more closely is structured wiring – the process of flood-wiring the horizontal with enough potential connections to accommodate any network changes or additions over a periods spanning 15 years. Driscoll says Cablestream has been offering this for sometime now without calling it structured wiring, but is now looking for approval under the specifications of the AT&T PDS Premises Distribution System structured wiring schema – this is expected to come through some time in July. – Mark John
