Niedax – Niedax Group becomes majority shareholder of Swiss fiber optic expert Fiber Home

EMR Analysis

More information on Niedax Group: See the full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Bruno Reufels (Chairman of the Management Board & Chief Executive Officer, Niedax Group + Chairman of the Board of Directors, Abnex (JV ABB & Niedax Group)): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Adrian Lowiner (Managing Director, International Sales and Project Management, Niedax Group + Member of the Executive Board, Niedax Group): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Fiber Home AG by Niedax Group: https://www.fiberhome.ch/ + Fiber Home AG is a full-service provider offering solutions along the entire fiber optic supply chain. This includes consulting, planning, project management, and implementation, as well as commissioning and maintenance of network construction projects, particularly in the area of ​​infrastructure. Fiber Home also offers in-house installations as well as splicing and connection solutions.

Fiber Home GmbH was founded in St. Gallenkappel in 2012. Due to increasing demand and our growth, we were able to open additional branches in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino in a very short time. Our headquarters also moved to Tuggen in 2016. From a start-up with three employees, Fiber Home GmbH has now established itself as one of the most successful fiber optic providers in Switzerland with around 120 employees.

More information on Vilson Gjykaj (Managing Director & Board Member, Fiber Home AG, Niedax Group): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services

More information on Sanida Gjykaj (Deputy Managing Director & Shareholder, Fiber Home AG, Niedax Group): See the full profile on EMR Executive Services

EMR Additional Notes:

• Optical Cabling:
  • An optical cable transfers audio digitally, but instead of copper wire, light is used. This is a variation of fiber optics, which is used in a variety of applications.
  • The biggest difference between Optical Cables and HDMI is that HDMI can pass higher-resolution audio, including the formats found on Blu-ray: Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. These formats can’t get transmitted across optical. In terms of simplicity, HDMI also passes video signals.

• Network Cabling:
  • Coaxial Cable:
    • Coaxial cables or coax, have a single copper conductor at the center, while a plastic layer provides insulation between the center conductor and braided metal shield. The metal shield blocks outside interference from fluorescent lights, motors, and other computers.
  • Twisted Pair:
    • Twisted pair uses copper wires that are, as the name suggests, twisted together in pairs. The twist effect of each pair in the cables ensures any interference presented or picked up on one cable is canceled by the cable’s partner that twists around the initial cable. Twisting the two wires also reduces the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the circuit.
      • Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable:
        • In STP, copper wires are first covered by plastic insulation. A metal shield, which consists of metal foil or braid, surrounds the bundle of insulated pairs. Where electromagnetic radiation is a serious issue, each pair of wires may be individually shielded in addition to the outer shield. This is known as foil twisted pair (FTP).
      • Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable:
        • UTP cables typically contain four pairs of copper wires, with each pair containing two wires twisted together. These pairs are covered by plastic insulation. They do not have any shielding and just have an outer jacket.
        • Most categories of twisted-pair cables are available as UTP. But some newer categories are also available in combinations of shielded, foil shielded and unshielded.
  • Fiber Optic Cable:
    • Fiber optic cables consist of a thin optical fiber surrounded by cladding. Cladding is made from glass that is less pure than the core and has a lower refractive index than the core. The difference in refractive indices causes light to be reflected at the boundary. Additional layers, such as the buffer layer and jacket layer, surround the cladding to add strength and protect the cable against damage.
    • Data rates have increased throughout the network, and in some cases, fiber optics is the only option. While Cat8 twisted-pair cables can carry up to 40 Gbps of data, fiber supports data rates up to 400 Gbps.
    • Fiber has a low error rate. Network data is encoded in a light beam. Unlike with twisted-pair cables, the light beam neither generates nor is affected by electronic interference. Additionally, multiple frequency data streams can be multiplexed over a single fiber to increase the total data rate.

• FTTx:
  • Fiber to the Home (FTTH), Fiber to the Building (FTTB), Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) and Fiber to the Curb (FTTC), termed as FTTx are various technology and deployment options developed to enable reach of fiber as close to the user location as possible to provide high speed data and voice services.
  • Fiber to the home (FTTH) is the delivery of a communications signal over optical fiber from the operator’s switching equipment all the way to a home or business, thereby replacing existing copper infrastructure such as telephone wires and coaxial cable.
  • FTTP and FTTH are two different abbreviations for the same thing. FTTP stands for ‘fibre to the premises’ and FTTH stands for ‘fibre to the home’. … Unlike FTTC, FTTP broadband is delivered via fibre-optic cables not only as far as the cabinet, but across the entire span to your home or business.
  • Fiber-optic cables are less susceptible to glitches than traditional copper wires and can withstand the shock and vibration from inclement weather. FTTH is considered “future proof” and offers the flexibility to deliver additional services in the years to come.

• Key Differences Between Copper Cable and Fiber Optics:
  • Data transmission speed of a fiber cable is comparatively more than that of copper cable. Copper cables are nearly 31% slower in data transmission than fiber cable.
  • A copper cable transmits the data through it in the form of electrical pulse i.e., due to the movement of electrons. As against in a fiber optics, the data transmission is the result of movement of photons thus it transmits in the form of light pulses.
  • The bandwidth provided by a copper cable is less than that of the fiber optics. Thus, a copper cabling meets the industry standards and provides a performance of up to 10 Gbps.  However, a fiber optics due to its large bandwidth possess better performance of up to 60 Tbps and above.
  • The energy consumed by a copper cable during its operation is somewhat greater than 10W but on the other side, fiber optics consumes less energy i.e., around 2W per user.
  • The lifespan of a copper wire is approximately 5 years as it gets easily affected by temperature variations and other environmental factors. However, fiber optics possess a lifespan of 30 to 50 years.
  • As fiber optics are difficult to be tapped as compared to copper cables thus proves advantageous from the security point of view. Due to this reason fiber optics are widely used for data transmission at present time.
  • A fiber optics allows transmission of data at a much faster rate as compared to copper cable.
  • The installation and maintenance cost of a fiber cable is more than copper cable.

• 4G, 5G and 6G: 
  • 5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.
    • First generation – 1G
      1980s: 1G delivered analog voice.
    • Second generation – 2G
      Early 1990s: 2G introduced digital voice (e.g. CDMA- Code Division Multiple Access).
    • Third generation – 3G
      Early 2000s: 3G brought mobile data (e.g. CDMA2000).
    • Fourth generation – 4G LTE
      2010s: 4G LTE ushered in the era of mobile broadband.
  • 5G has started hitting the market end of 2018 and will continue to expand worldwide unleashing also a massive 5G IoT (Internet of Things) ecosystem.
  • 5G speed tops out at 10 gigabits per second (Gbps).
    • 5G is 10 to x100 faster than what you can get with 4G.
  • The main evolution compared with today’s 4G and 4.5G (aka LTE advanced, LTE-A, LTE+ or 4G+) is that, beyond data speed improvements, new IoT and critical communication use cases will require a new level of improved performance.
    • For example, low latency provides real-time interactivity for services using the cloud: this is key to the success of self-driving cars, for example.
    • 5G vs 4G also means at least x100 devices connected. 5G must be able to support 1 million devices for 0.386 square miles or 1 km2.
    • Also, low power consumption is what will allow connected objects to operate for months or years without the need for human assistance.
    • Unlike current IoT services that make performance trade-offs to get the best from current wireless technologies (3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, etc.), 5G networks will be designed to bring the level of performance needed for massive IoT.
  • 6G (sixth-generation wireless) is the successor to 5G cellular technology. 6G networks will be able to use higher frequencies than 5G networks and provide substantially higher capacity and much lower latency. One of the goals of the 6G internet is to support one microsecond latency communications. This is 1,000 times faster — or 1/1000th the latency — than one millisecond throughput.
    • The 6G technology market is expected to facilitate large improvements in the areas of imaging, presence technology and location awareness. Working in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI), the 6G computational infrastructure will be able to identify the best place for computing to occur; this includes decisions about data storage, processing and sharing.
    • It is important to note that 6G is not yet a functioning technology. While some vendors are investing in the next-generation wireless standard, industry specifications for 6G-enabled network products remain years away. 6G internet is expected to launch commercially in 2030.