Test and Measurement News

Prism Sound help Cable & Wireless test the UK airwaves

Cambridge, UK, August 2007: Prism Sound, the Cambridge-based manufacturer of precision test equipment for the audio broadcast and manufacturing industries, are pleased to announce the sale of five dScope Series III audio test, measurement and analysis systems to leading international communications company Cable & Wireless.

Since BBC Technology, the broadcast network arm of the BBC, was sold to engineering and communications giant Siemens in 2004, Cable & Wireless have been supplying broadcast network infrastructure to Siemens for the BBC's audio and video networks. The Prism Sound dScope Series III was sold to Cable & Wireless for use in testing the equipment and infrastructure the company is supplying to support the BBC's local and core radio network, in the analogue domain and also the newer AES3-based digital networks.

"In many areas, we're maintaining uncompressed digital audio networks operating using Glensound hardware and using ATM as a transport," comments Nick Jupp of Cable & Wireless, "and, in some areas, we're replacing older BT Musicline 2000 services with systems based around APT-X compression." With DAB on target to reach 40 percent of homes in the UK by 2009, it's more important than ever to maintain and improve the digital radio infrastructure, while continuing to maintain the existing analogue network.

"We certainly needed something in place to test all of this infrastructure," continues Nick Jupp, "and the dScope Series III proved to be the right solution for us and our customer. We needed it to be usable by a wide range of our engineers, not all of whom have to know the full detail of the tests being carried out, but we had to be able to rely on it to rigorously test whatever we put in front of it and pass or fail the system for use. The dScope was ideal because it's a configurable system, and whole test routines can be scripted to run at the touch of a button. Prism Sound's engineers were a great help here, as rather than custom-designing whole test and measurement scripts from scratch, they adapted some existing scripts for our use, once we'd explained exactly what our test requirements were. Now our engineers can use the dScope for testing in a simplified and consistent manner. We originally had the dScope system on loan, but it eventually became clear that we needed to have several. We'll be starting with one unit, and then ordering four more."

Since this interview, Cable and Wireless have confirmed the purchase of the remaining 4 units.

Prism Sound can be found on Stand 597 in Hall 8 at IBC.