36 37 TELE-audiovision International The Worlds Leading Digital TV Industry Publication 09-10/2014 www.TELE-audiovision.com www.TELE-audiovision.

com 09-10/2014 TELE-audiovision International

By
PerfectVision

Solves the cable

dispensing problem
Simplifes the
handling of coax
cable by installers
Reduces waste by
eliminating defective
cable due too knots
Makes for clean
installations
Environmentally
practical
PRODUCT REPORT Coax Cable Dispenser
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09-10/2014
www.TELE-audiovision.com/14/09/enviroreel
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We are more effcient when
we use the EnviroReel
If youve ever installed a
satellite system, you already
know that its not easy to
unroll coax cable. If this is
your job and you do this on a
regular basis, it can become
frustrating. Longer lengths
of cable can easily get tan-
gled up in knots and it can be
a chore to untangle it all, is
what youll hear from every
installer. Coax cable should
not be bent too sharply so you
should be careful when unty-
ing any knots or, better yet,
dont let the cable get knotted
up at all. This age-old prob-
lem on how to properly unroll
coax cable was solved in an
ingenious way by the com-
pany PerfectVision: the En-
viroReel Cable Management
Solution - an enclosed cable
reel with many additional fea-
tures.
Chrispin Bowen is the En-
viroReel product manager
and has been responsible
for working with DIRECTV to
bring the EnviroReel Solution
PRODUCT REPORT Coax Cable Dispenser
1. Front entrance of the DIRECTV service station in
Riverside, California. From here the satellite installers
handle the installation jobs for a portion of the Los Angeles
area. Once a week they all meet here to restock their vans
with supplies.
2. View of the service van yard: here can be found all of
the vans used by the DIRECTV satellite installers. It's just
before 7:00AM; in a few minutes all of the installers will start
their tours, then the yard will be empty.
PerfectVision - EnviroReel
Makes the installation of coax cable
by installers much more effcient
to market. They also distrib-
ute installation supplies that
Pay TV installers in the USA
need for their work. Our
products are all checked out
and approved for use by the
satellite operator DIRECTV.
Or, to put it another way, any-
one that wants to install sat-
ellite systems for DIRECTV
must use products approved
by DIRECTV. Because of this
PerfectVision operates six
warehouses across the USA
that store all the products
a DIRECTV installer would
need. These products would
then be delivered from these
warehouses to local install-
ers.
Chrispin Bowin describes
the system to us: DIRECTV
utilizes a network of owned
and affliated installation com-
panies. The affliated instal-
lation companies are known
as Home Services Providers,
that account for the balance
of the overall network.
DIRECTV places a premium
on the employees safety as
well as the importance of en-
vironmental culture and by
supervising the installation
process DIRECTV can active-
ly shape this culture in close
cooperation with its supplier,
PerfectVision, who provide to
the DIRECTV installation net-
work all the necessary mate-
rial. Offcially, PerfectVision
is the manufacturer of these
products and the company
Perfect10 does the actual
shipping of these products,
expands Chrispin Bowen on
the specifcs.
One of PerfectVisions
warehouses can be found in
Fontana, east of Los Angeles,
in California. Here they store
DIRECTV satellite dishes, the
matching LNBs, masts, angle
brackets, smaller parts such
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as clamps and lastly coax
cable. We offer four differ-
ent kinds of coax cable each
available in black and white.
This includes single coax ca-
ble as well as dual coax ca-
ble (two cables in one) with
or without ground wire. It is
especially high-quality cable
that consists of a pure cop-
per inner conductor and not
a copper-clad conductor that
you might fnd in less expen-
sive coax cable, explains
3.Alex Talentino has been working for DIRECTV for fve years and
for three years has been supervisor for all of the satellite installers
for DIRECTVs service station in Riverside, California. He is
responsible for the installation (and maintenance, upgrades, etc.)
of DIRECTV's satellite reception systems in the Los Angeles area.
4. Morning briefng at 6:30AM. On this particular Thursday
Adrian Dimech paid a visit to this DIRECTV service station. He
is the Region Vice President of DiRECTV Home Services and is
reminding the technicians in his presentation to comply with safety
rules.
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5. A locked metal box is reserved for each satellite installer.
The installers each let headquarters know what supplies are
needed and every Thursday morning each installer loads his
van with those supplies. The white rolls are spare coax cable
rolls for the EnviroReel. Each roll consists of 1000 feet (300
meters) of cable.
6. How does a satellite installer know where to go and install
a satellite system? Very simple: he logs into the system via a
mobile DIRECTV App and then fnds out to which customers
he has to drive to. In this way each technician can stay in
touch with their headquarters through a Samsung Smartphone
that each technician was given back in October 2013. "It allows
us to optimize the technicians workload", explains supervisor
Alex Talentino, "and also lets us see where each technician is
located. As soon as another job comes in we can use the GPS
data and how much estimated time is remaining on a current
job to determine which technician should be dispatched to
the new job." In this way, downtime is minimized; this makes
sense for the technicians since they get paid by the job, not by
the hour.
7. This is Jose Torres, one of DIRECTV's satellite installers. He
came up with the idea to put the used rolls of EnviroReel coax
cable in a bucket. Jose has used this recyclable reel part in a
reusable way, which complies with a reduce/reuse/ recycle,
sustainability practice. This was an unexpected side effect of
the EnviroReel.
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The EnviroReel
cable dispenser in use
at a customer site
8. This is Marcelo Galindo. He's been
working for DIRECTV for seven years
and installs satellite dishes. He tells us,
"When I arrive at a customer location, the
frst thing I do is set up safety cones to
protect the van."
9. After Marcelo Galindo has spoken
with the customer and determined what
work needs to be done (in this case it's
an expansion of the satellite system),
he checks out the security form. For
this customer he takes note that there's
a dog on the property as well as how
dangerous the dog is. Every step is
documented so that there can be no
argument or misunderstanding at a later
time.
10. This is what the inside of the
EnviroReel cable dispenser looks like:
the cable reel is already half empty. It
won't be long before Marcelo Galindo will
need to replace it with a new reel.
11. Now he's ready: Marcelo Galindo has
put on his safety helmet and his safety
gloves; now he's pulling the coax cable
out of the EnviroReel cable dispenser.
12. When needing to pull cable, he'll
simply take the EnviroReel cable
dispenser wherever he needs the cable.
The carrying handle makes it easy to
carry even if the reel were still full.
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13. Once the necessary cable length has
been pulled out of the EnviroReel, he gets
the remaining supplies from his van.
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14. In Fontana, east of Los
Angeles, can be found one
of PerfectVision's six USA
warehouses. All of the satellite
installers that set up DIRECTV
systems are supplied from
here. The EnviroReel Cable
Management Solution is
currently being deployed with
operators in Canada, Latin
America, and the Middle East.
PVM is expecting expansion
into Europe in 2015.
15. Chrispin Bowin is
PerfectVision's Product
Manager and worked with
PVM's Engineering team
for the conception and
development of the EnviroReel.
He and his team visited nearly
300 locations across the USA.
to explain the new system.
"The original idea for the
EnviroReel came to life in the
summer of 2012 and by April
of 2013 the EnviroReel was put
into service. Since then more
than 500,000 coax cable rolls
were used!" That's almost
95,000 miles (150,000 km).
Chrispin Bowen to us.
Because of this Strategic
Partnership with DIRECTV,
PerfectVision is not just sit-
ting back and relaxing but this
is precisely what the company
doesnt do. With EnviroReel
weve developed a cable dis-
penser that makes the job of
an installer more effcient,
says Chrispin Bowen, co-de-
veloper of the EnviroReel who
is consistently working on im-
proving it.
Oddly enough, the work ef-
fciency of the installer was
not the original idea behind
the development of the En-
viroReel. Coax cable is typi-
cally shipped in boxes. When
a roll is used up, the empty
box is left over. But with so
much cable being used, there
were a large number of empty
boxes that were simply tossed
away. The original idea was
to reduce this waste by pack-
ing the cable in such a way
for satellite installers so as to
minimize the number of boxes
that would end up in the trash.
But as we started working
on this concept we realized
that we could greatly simplify
and optimize the entire pro-
cess. The result is a multi-
functional solution for one
problem that has been around
as long as coax cable itself:
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Transportability. The install-
ers frst have to transport the
cable reels to the installation
location. The EnviroReel has a
single handgrip. Then it has to
be easy to unroll the cable so
the cable is stored on a roll in
the EnviroReel. Since installa-
tions can often take place in
less-than-clean environments,
the cable in the EnviroReel is
completely protected. The En-
viroReels can also be easily
stacked or, quite the opposite,
the box wont mind if you just
toss it in your car. Additional
advantages include, for exam-
ple, protection against mois-
ture: standard cable boxes
quickly soften up due to mois-
ture.
Then there is safety, so high
on DIRECTVs agenda: The
EnviroReel cable dispenser
has an integrated handle de-
16. In the warehouse Logistics
Operations Manager Javier
Tolentino shows us the
spare coax cable rolls for the
EnviroReel cable dispenser.
They are shipped to the
warehouse on these pallets.
17. Close-up view of a cable
roll. It contains extremely high
quality cable, the only type
authorized by DIRECTV.
OPINION
EXPERT
+

RECOMMENDED
PRODUCT BY
Alexander Wiese
Test Center
Germany
Perfect Vision - EnviroReel
Coaxial Cable Dispenser
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sign, which is a safer alter-
native than a cardboard box
that does not. This allows for
much easier lifting and han-
dling of the cables.
The EnviroReel has quickly
gained acceptance with DI-
RECTV satellite system in-
stallers. One of DIRECTVs
service station for their own
satellite installers is in Riv-
erside, California, near Los
Angeles. 68 technicians are
concentrated here.
Once a week on Thursday
they meet here and pick up
the latest information on
what DIRECTV has planned.
Mostly though they load up
their service vans with new
supplies. We spoke with the
technicians: A 1000-foot
(300-meter) roll of cable lasts
on average about three days.
The single coax cable without
ground wire is the most often
used cable while the single
cable with ground wire comes
in second. The ratio is about
20 to 1 for the single cable.
Typically, an installer will
have two EnviroReel boxes
in their vans with these two
types of cables. We also usu-
ally run with one or two spare
rolls of 1000-foot (300m)
single coax cable, so that we
can reload the EnviroReel any
time.
The DIRECTV installers are
paid by the job. That means
theyd like to avoid as many
delays as possible.
Thats why we like Enviro-
Reel so much; it allows us to
work much more effciently,
says Alex Talentino. Hes the
supervisor of all 68 techni-
cians in DIRECTVs Riverside
service station. Hes been
working with the company for
fve years. We were the frst
operation to begin using the
EnviroReel. That was back in
April 2013. Each technician
is given two EnviroReel ca-
ble dispensers and none of
them want to part with these
boxes.
PerfectVision has created
a simple solution that puts
to bed an age-old frustrating
problem with coax cable rolls.
It has undergone many stag-
es of development and now
solves many other practical
problems simultaneously, all
without any electronics or
software. Its just a mechani-
cal tool.
And development isnt over:
PerfectVision is busy expand-
ing EnviroReel with more use-
ful add-ons. Most welcomed
by the technicians is a roller
bag, which no longer requires
the dispenser to carry but
allows the EnviroReel cable
dispenser to roll along (like
an airport suitcase). Equally
awaited by the technicians
is a smaller 500 cable dis-
penser and a shoulder bag
for easy carrying it along to
where the cable is needed.
And lastly PerfectVision is
expanding the system to also
offer category cable (aka Eth-
ernet cable) and thus expand-
ing the range of potential us-
ers to include the technicians
installing data network sys-
tems.
PerfectVision has clearly
created a completely new
product segment, which it
can now expand to several
new areas, where cables of
any types need to be carried
along by the technicians.
Simplifes the Installers work
Coax cable is always protected
Easier handing of coax cable
Fast and easy swapping of cable rolls
Very environmentally friendly thanks to limited use of packing
materials
none
18. The empty EnviroReel boxes are also shipped out from this
warehouse. It can be ordered by anyone for US$40.00. 40,000 of
these EnviroReel boxes have already been produced and 35,000
of them are in use by satellite installers across the USA. The
EnviroReel boxes themselves are manufactured in the USA in
Colorado; the cable comes from China.
19. This is how it used to be: warehouse employee Mirna shows
us a cable roll in cardboard packaging. PerfectVision ships this
version to satellite installers that haven't yet switched over to
the EnviroReel cable dispenser.
20. PerfectVision also offers other types of cable that are
primarily used in cable head-end stations and in cable
distribution centers. They are smaller in circumference and are
available in different colors. PerfectVision is also working on an
EnviroReel solution for this type of cable; four of these narrower
cable rolls ft in one EnviroReel cable dispenser.