1999 Press Releases-07

Yokogawa Electric Corporation (headquarters: 2-9-32 Nakacho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180-8750, Japan; president: Isao Uchida; capital: 32.306 billion yen) has developed the LX100, a portable yet powerful xDSL* line tester, which facilitates tests which are essential to the deployment of an xDSL service (an ADSL*, etc.) in order to realize high-speed data communication using an existing telephone line. The LX100 will be released on December 15 as the first xDSL line tester made in Japan.

Background

Methods employed by xDSLs, such as the ADSL, represent the next-generation in data communications that communications carriers are hustling to promote. By allowing for the effective use of existing telephone lines xDSL offers a lot of merits including minimal investments on equipment and facilities as well as allowing for quick implementation. In the United States, the increase in popularity of xDSLs has been so rapid that its expansion has reached a level two or three times greater than that of the preceding year. Although xDSL can realize communication speeds 10 to 100 times faster than conventional methods it uses existing metallic cable so its communication quality (noise, attenuation, etc.) and speed greatly depends on the electric characteristics of the cable. Therefore, the adoption of xDSL requires the measurement of various electric characteristics such as noise and attenuation and it is necessary to ascertain whether or not a noise margin can be secured. Before such testers, connecting a pair of modems was the only way to conduct such testing, and there was no way of conducting such tests when there was a problem with the line.

Although, testers that can easily measure such characteristics had already been released in the United States where there has been a marked increase in the use ADSLs, such testers had not yet been manufactured by a Japanese company.

Merits of LX100

1. Compact yet High Performance with Powerful Problem Analyses
   Even under the severe conditions that challenge service technicians, the LX100 can be used to check noise and attenuation as well as allow the user to determine various data, such as the cause of the problem or the location of a bad splice point or Bridge Tap and Load Coil through the graphical display of test results. This greatly slashes the time of testing.
   
2. Precision Measurements
   The LX100 can measure low-level noise at an average noise level of -140 dBm/Hz, assuring the user of precision testing.
   
3. Autotesting
   The Autotest function, equipped as a standard function, can perform automatic testing with conditions which have been programmed beforehand, thus allowing accurate testing regardless of the skill of the testing person.

Yokogawa in Market of Measuring Instruments for Communication Technologies

Digital communication methods such as wide-band code division multiple access (W-CDMA), and moving picture compression methods such as MPEG, and communication standards such as the IEEE1394 multimedia data communication serial bus, have been drawing much attention as fields in which growth is expected. Yokogawa wants to make measuring instruments for communication devices a new core business that functions alongside existing cores of its measuring instrument business-precision measuring instruments, waveform monitors, and data acquisition systems.

In January 1997, Yokogawa concluded a contract with 3A International, a venture company in United States, for exclusive sales in Asia and started distributing 3A International's analyzers for IEEE1394. Yokogawa has also been exploring the market of measuring instruments for the development of W-CDMA-related devices as was exemplified with the development and release of a W-CDMA evaluation system in November 1997, and the VB2000 digital IQ signal generator and VG3000 digital modulating signal generator in November 1998. In addition to these development-purpose measuring instruments, in September this year, Yokogawa enriched its range of communication-related measuring instruments with the release of the LT8600 handheld LAN tester which is used for maintenance and inspection. The new LX100 enhances Yokogawa's lineup of measuring instruments that provide solutions for the next-generation of communication technologies.

Major Target Markets

Service functions of communications carriers , maintenance functions for local area networks of companies and organizations, etc.

Sales Targets

500 testers in fiscal year 2000
1000 testers in fiscal year 2001 (including overseas sales)

* xDSL is an acronym of the generic term Digital Subscriber Line for communication technologies using a digital telephone line where "x" can be replaced with any of a number of letters, as shown below:
- ADSL (Asymmetric DSL)
- HDSL (High-bit-rate DSL)
- SDSL (Single-line DSL)
- VDSL (Very-high-bit-rate DSL)