HDMI 2.1 spec cranks up speed to 48 Gbps, support for 8K60

A newly released Version 2.1 of the HDMI Specification supports a range of higher video resolutions and refresh rates including 8K60 and 4K120, and resolutions up to 10K.

HDMI v2.10, which is backwards compatible, offers significantly increased bandwidth of up to 40 Gbps across the connection. Key attributes of the specification:

HDMI Specification 2.1 features include:

• Higher video resolutions support a range of high resolutions and faster refresh rates including 8K60Hz and 4K120Hz. Resolutions up to 10K are also supported for commercial AV, and industrial and specialty usages.
• Dynamic HDR 
• The Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable supports the 48G bandwidth for uncompressed HDMI 2.1 feature support. The cable also features very low EMI emission and is backwards compatible with earlier versions of the HDMI Specification and can be used with existing HDMI devices.
• eARC simplifies connectivity, provides greater ease of use, and supports the most advanced audio formats and highest audio quality. It ensures full compatibility between audio devices and upcoming HDMI 2.1 products.
• Enhanced refresh rate features ensure an added level of smooth and seamless
• motion and transitions for gaming, movies and video. They include:
• Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) reduces or eliminates lag, stutter and frame tearing for more fluid and better-detailed gameplay.
• Quick Media Switching (QMS) for movies and video eliminates the delay that can result in blank screens before content is displayed.
• Quick Frame Transport (QFT) reduces latency for smoother no-lag gaming, and real-time interactive virtual reality.
• Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM) allows the ideal latency setting to automatically be set allowing for smooth, lag-free and uninterrupted viewing and interactivity.

“The HDMI Forum’s mission is to develop specifications meeting market needs, growing demands for higher performance, and to enable future product opportunities,” said Robert Blanchard of Sony Electronics, president of the HDMI Forum.

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Crosslake Fibre plans subsea cable from Toronto to Buffalo

Crosslake Fibre, a new venture that plans to construct the first submarine cable across Lake Ontario from Toronto, Canada to Buffalo, New York, has secured an investment from Tiger Infrastructure Partners.

Crosslake intends to build a high fibre count network linking data centres in Toronto t networks in the United States. The 60-km subsea cable will be the first in Lake Ontario. Crosslake Fibre said intends to use horizontal directional drilling to land the submarine cable at each landing in order to minimize any impact to the shore end or beach. The ready-for-service (RFS) date for the system is September 2018.

“Crosslake will enable the purchase of new, diverse dark fibre between Canada and the U.S., allowing carriers to displace leased fibre and add diversity,” said Michael Cunningham, CEO of Crosslake. “We are excited to
partner with Tiger Infrastructure to grow the Crosslake platform.”

In November, Crosslake Fibre announced plans for a submarine cable system connecting cable landing stations in Wall, New Jersey to Long Island, New York.

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Megaport activates Direct Connect to IBM Cloud

Megaport, which provides SDN-based Elastic Interconnect Services, has begun offering direct, secure connectivity to IBM Cloud from any of the 179 data centres globally where it is present.

"IBM Cloud has a long and rich history within the enterprise space," said Vincent English, Chief Executive Officer, Megaport. "Clients who want to build next-generation applications now have direct, scalable access to cloud infrastructure that is tuned for AI and big data. Our connectivity model bypasses the public internet and serves enterprises moving to the cloud while improving performance and network reliability to critical business applications. As a result, customers can optimise workloads and scale between on-premises infrastructure and the cloud."

"Enterprises have moved well past using the cloud simply for cost-savings, and are now embracing higher value cloud-native services to create new business opportunities," said Kit Linton, Vice President of Network, IBM Cloud. "Megaport is enabling direct connectivity to IBM Cloud Direct Link to provide a reliable way for global enterprises to expand their reach, drive innovation and embrace a cloud strategy that seamlessly connects public and private infrastructure."

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Toshiba boosts conventional HDD to 14TB

Toshiba introduced an enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) with a record capacity of 14 TB and based on Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) technology. The drive uses a 9-disk, helium-sealed design and is aimed at cloud-scale and enterprise storage applications. A 12 TB, 8-disk version of the drive will also be available.

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DE-CIX hits a peak load of 6 Tbps for first time

On December 6th, the DE-CIX Internet Exchange in Frankfurt, Germany hit exceeded the 6 Tbps threshold of peak load for the first time.

The DE-CIX Internet exchange in Frankfurt boasts over 700 networks connections. Access is available in 20+ data centers in the metro area. Exchange traffic flows over the DE-CIX Apollon platform.

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Kansas City Power & Light picks Nokia

Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) has selected Nokia to enhance the microwave communications network that supports a range of mission-critical services for the utility's power transmission and distribution grid.

Nokia said that for this project it is introducing the latest microwave packet radio technology as an overlay to existing equipment.

KCP&L is deploying Nokia's Wavence microwave packet radio family of technologies (formerly known as the 9500 Microwave Packet Radio), which will enable the utility to support all of its grid control applications alongside its legacy data services using a single, converged network. The current deployment, covering 40 sites, is already underway and is to be completed before the end of 2017.  A second phase consisting of 29 additional sites will follow shortly after.

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