Wireless for power utilities
by Stephen Lawson
A Silicon Valley startup has combined the technology underlying WiMax
with a software-defined radio to build smart grids for electric
utilities.
The startup, called Full Spectrum, is teaming up with a company that
holds licences to TV channels in order to offer high-speed
infrastructure to help electric companies better manage their power.
Full Spectrum's FullMax Broadband Wireless System isn't truly WiMax
because it uses low frequencies that haven't been certified by the WiMax
Forum. But it takes advantage of high-volume silicon from Tata Elxsi
that was designed using the IEEE 802.16e standard used in WiMax gear.
That lowers the cost of the gear below the proprietary equipment
typically used in private utility networks, according to Stewart Kantor,
CEO of the company in Menlo Park, California. "It would have cost US
$100 million to build this platform in the year 2000," Kantor said. "All
the stuff that was developed in the late '90s is now paying off."
FullMax is also forward-looking because it uses software-defined
radio, a technology that allows one radio to use different frequencies
depending on current needs.
The software-defined radio that Full Spectrum developed can tap into
frequencies ranging from 40MHz to 958MHz depending on what bands a given
utility has bought access to.
The new data networks will complement existing private networks that
serve specialized push-to-talk phones for utility workers, according to
Kantor. Electric utilities need more bandwidth to build "smart grids,"
which include a growing array of mechanisms for gauging power demand and
adjusting supply, he said.
Power companies are building smart grids partly to collect more
information from their electrical distribution networks and act on it
more quickly, thereby operating more efficiently. Those grids include
far more than networked meters in homes, the best-known example of
smart-grid equipment, Kantor said.
There are components throughout an electrical grid to track and
control transmission, some of which require low latency and 1M bps (bit
per second) or more of capacity to exchange information in real time, he
said.
Though mobile operators already have fast data networks across broad
swaths of the U.S., those networks aren't suited to utilities, according
to Full Spectrum.
The carriers' 3G and 4G infrastructure doesn't always reach remote
facilities, isn't dependable enough and has to be shared with consumer
users of mobile devices, Kantor said.
He cited a recent filing to the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission by Sempra Energy, a Southern California utility serving about
25 million customers, that outlined why the power company doesn't
believe carrier networks are adequate for its needs.
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