Scoop

A parallel import or Grey Product is a product that is imported into South Africa without the manufacturer or local distributors’ knowledge. Although not illegal in South Africa, it poses a few risks to your business. We have outlined these risks below to help you make an informed decision.

We have improved our Return Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) submission process to provide our customers with better service through quicker turn-around times. This article will explain our new online RMA procedure and what you can expect when returning faulty goods to Scoop.

Fibre can be a complex task when just getting started as there are many different standards available in the market. This article intends to explain some of the fundamentals of cable and connectors to aid you with choosing the right components and solutions for your fibre deployments. Cable - The first decision you will need to make is your choice of cable. There are many different materials available to protect the sensitive fibre inside the sheath. Your choice will depend on whether you install indoors, outdoors, underground, aerial or underwater, each of these applications will require different types of cable composition.

What is AI? AI, or Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processed by computers, this means that computers have the ability to perform human tasks and make its own logical decisions without human intervention. AI has the ability to analyse data in real time much faster, more reliable and efficient than any human can. Therefore AI is used to perform both simple and really complicated tasks, and is designed to be more accurate and to assist humans in day to day activities.

We want to give our Dealers the opportunity to further expand their business via Takealot’s online retail platform. The aim of this article is to give you the benefit of our experience and let you in on what we have learnt to ensure that your process is as hassle-free as possible. Takealot can be complimented on the fact that they have an abundance of resources available for the reseller to explain the process of getting started, so I am not going to rehash the entire process, but rather just give a few tips.

Before setting up, mounting or configuring any wireless links, there are a few questions that you need to ask yourself before going ahead with the installation. Am I doing a PTP (point to point) or PTMP (Point to multi-point) link? Do I have clear line of sight to the other end/s? What equipment do I need to use? Answering these questions will help you plan your links to get the most out of your deployments. PTP or PTMP? This may seem like a trivial question but it is quite important. Depending on your answer to this question, all of the other questions will follow suit and be adapted to work for the answer. Must I cover a large number of connections coming back to a single point, or will there be individual links consisting of just two devices per link? PTMP topologies will generally achieve less bandwidth due to shared access to the wireless network.

ESD is a build up of electrically charged particles that can wreak havoc with your devices if not adequately protected. Lightning storms are a prime example of ESD build up. Turbulence in storm clouds causes a build-up of electrical charges that ultimately result in a lightning strike. Even when there is no visible lightning, friction caused by small particles colliding with the device creates a static build up which eventually defuses onto the electronics. If powerful enough, this discharge can travel through the PCB of the device, out the Ethernet port and down the Ethernet cable to the devices below.

Is a 12 month warranty period long enough? This is a question that is asked quite often. It can be answered by analysing product failure rate over time.

In the world of networking, it is still difficult to beat the stability and speed offered by a wired connection. Even if you have wireless links set up, you will still use copper cabling at some point of your physical network. With this post, we will shed some light on the different standards of cabling available, what they mean and give you some guidelines on how to choose the right cable for your installation.

What is PoE? Power over Ethernet, or PoE, is the process of sending power & data over twisted pair Ethernet cabling to simplify power requirements. Ethernet cabling consists of 4 twisted pairs. In a FE (10/100mbps) network only two of the four pairs will transmit data, the remaining two are reserved for power. In GE (1Gbps) networks all four pairs transmit data, while two of these pairs transmit power and data simultaneously.