Europe's first glimpse of a live US baseball game

It is rare to visit a museum dedicated to telecoms, never mind one set in beautiful grounds. Nor does it often happen that the visit coincides with an important anniversary for the site.

La Cité des Télécoms, a museum set in 11 hectares of land in Pleumeur-Bodou, Brittany, France, is where the first TV live feed was sent by satellite from the US to Europe.

The Radôme protecting the vast horn antenna

The Telstar 1 communications satellite was launched 60 years ago, on July 10, 1962. The first transmission that included part of a live Chicago baseball game almost immediately followed.

By then, a vast horn radio antenna had been constructed and was awaiting the satellite's first signals. The Radôme houses the antenna, an inflated dome-shaped skin to protect it from the weather. The antenna is built using 276 tonnes of steel and sits on 4,000 m³ of concrete. Just the bolts holding together the structure weigh 10 tonnes. It is also the largest inflated unsupported dome in the world. 

The antenna continued to receive satellite transmissions till 1985. The location was then classed as a site of national historical importance. The huge horn antenna is unique since the twin antenna in the US has been dismantled.  

The Cité des Télécoms museum was opened in 1991 and the site is a corporate foundation supported by Orange. 

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OPNFV's releases reflect the evolving needs of the telcos

The Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) is increasingly focused on supporting cloud-native technologies and the network edge.

Heather KirkseyThe open source group, part of the Linux Foundation, specialises in the system integration of network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology.

The OPNFV issued Fraser, its latest platform release, earlier this year while its next release, Gambia, is expected soon.  

Moreover, the telcos continual need for new features and capabilities means the OPNFV’s work is not slowing down.

“I don’t see us entering maintenance-mode anytime soon,” says Heather Kirksey, vice president, community and ecosystem development, The Linux Foundation and executive director, OPNFV. 

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The Open ROADM MSA adds new capabilities in Release 2.0

The Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for open reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADM) group expects to publish its second release in the coming months. The latest MSA specifications extend optical reach by including line amplification and adds support for flexible grid and lower-speed tributaries with OTN switching.

Xavier PougnardThe Open ROADM MSA, set up by AT&T, Ciena, Fujitsu and Nokia, is promoting interoperability between vendors’ ROADMs by specifying open interfaces for their control using software-defined networking (SDN) technology. Now, one year on, the MSA has 10 members, equally split between operators and systems vendors.

Orange joined the Open ROADM MSA last July and says it shares AT&T’s view that optical networks lack openness given the proprietary features of the vendors’ systems.

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