Interview with Irit Gillath - VP of IP Product Line Management

Q. How can utilities leverage their existing infrastructure to deliver additional services to customers? A. Municipal electricity utilities as well as larger utilities often own some fiber optic [backbones and control transit exchanges where communication service providers meet. They use this fiber network for all of their internal communication needs, including SCADA and remote management of the distribution network.

Some utilities also offer FTTH services to residents in their service area.  But the capacity that this fiber network can support still far exceeds what is currently being used. They can offer solutions to variety of potential end-users, from residences, through businesses and other service providers – wireless and wired

Q. What are the broadband opportunities available for a regional or municipal utility company?

A. Many already offer residential services, either PON-based or active Ethernet.  Utilities can extend services over their fiber-based network to a variety of customers within their community. This can include

• simple L2 Ethernet intraconnectivity for their own communication use as well as for municipal offices like police, fire, administration, schools, and hospitals;
• Ethernet and circuit emulation services to commercial entities who are looking to consolidate their current TDM voice network with a high-speed data network to support HD conferencing, data storage, etc.;
• wholesale access to third-party service providers who are migrating from copper ‘last-mile’ to fiber/microwave;
• active Ethernet FTTH to residents;
• Smart Grid Backhaul and finally,
• backhaul services to wireless operators.

Q. Are there utility companies who are already offering these services?

A. Yes there are utilities that offer each and every one of these services today, to name a few, Mason County PUD in WA has connected all their police, hospitals, firefighters, universities and schools as well as many residences to a fiber based network. In fact this granted Mason General Hospital "2010 Most Wired Hospital" award. Other utilities are already offering backhaul services to Verizon and AT&T using Ethernet or MPLS based solutions. And these are just a few examples of such deployments.

Q. What do utilities need to consider when offering a multi-service network?

A. A multi-service network needs to support different types of traffic ideally over an MPLS transport.  This may include SCADA and internal control traffic, wireless backhaul, T1 over IP, direct Internet access, video, data storage, and so on.  Municipal offices will also want to have their outlying facilities intra-connected to a central site, and the ability to offer different SLAs for different type of customers and different type of services will need to be supported.

Q. Are there special considerations for wireless backhaul?

A. Wireless backhaul presents a unique challenge.  The backhaul network may be servicing both 2.xG traffic and updating 3G base stations to packet. Other pure packet intiatives, like HSPA+, WiMAX, and LTE may also exist. These vastly different wireless networks require a mix of synchronization technologies depending on the underlying infrastructure.  In some cases synchronization may be embedded, in other cases operators may be using GPS or T1 for synchronization.  It is critical that the devices be able to support multiple synchronization methods from the cell site to the aggregation devices.

Q. How do the solutions from Telco Systems address these requirements?

A. Telco Systems offers solutions that can support flexible transport options that will map into an MPLS core, collapse both TDM and Ethernet services onto one efficient transport network, offer multiple synchronization schemes that interwork across devices, offer per service per customer QoS granularity and advanced OAM&P options, and zero-touch provisioning to ease the deployment process. 

Q. If a utility has a limited IT staff, how can they support all of these different technologies?

A. Telco Systems’ EdgeGenie makes service management easy and intuitive. EdgeGenie uses a familiar graphical interface to provision the different services and take advantage of all the complicated OAM&P standards in an effortless way with very little training. It allows the utility to focus on the service and anticipate in advance and issues or changes that may occur in the network.