[forwarded from elsewhere]

[From Data Communications, January 1993]

INVENTION CUTS CABLING TIES

An inventor working from a garden shed in the U.K. has come up with a device that enables PCs and other LAN equipment to send and receive data through the plastic outer jacket of copper LAN cabling-- without piercing the cabling. Called the Watsonlinc Cable Coupling Transformer, the device allows users to attach LAN equipment at any point in a network without going through time-consuming and costly cable attachment procedures. The Watsonlinc, which must be placed directly next to a cable's outer jacket, uses a proprietary technique to reduce noise interference while picking up and transmitting data signals. Watsonlinc-equipped network interface cards (NICs) will appear in the next 12 months, according to inventor Mike Watson (Walton-on-Thames, U.K.), who says the device's production cost of about $5 per unit will not significantly increase NIC sticker prices. The Watsonlinc works with both shielded and unshielded twisted-pair copper cabling, is small enough to fit on laptop PC internal adapters, and is capable of handling all common LAN speeds, Watson says. The internationally patented invention works just as well with voice signals. Predictably, it already has been licensed for use in telephone surveillance equipment.

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