Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Outage Not Helping Utilities' Plea For More Spectrum

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2003 03:54:12 -0400

Outage Not Helping Utilities' Plea For More Spectrum

While the massive power outage may have illustrated that utilities need more
spectrum, it's not viewed as a watershed event in that respect.

9/15/03

WASHINGTON—Despite the size and scope of North America's worst electrical outage
last month, electrical utility lobbyists and wireless industry analysts don't
believe the event will result in more spectrum for the utility industry.
As the investigation progressed into the cause of the massive power outage that
left 50 million people in the dark for almost two days, officials initially
scrutinized the communications systems that tied power utilities together. Of
particular interest were the communications links between utility company control
rooms. Those links were installed after the big blackout of 1965 to help with
prevention and restoration.

The United Telecom Council, which represents electric power, water, gas and other
critical infrastructure entities, has argued for years that its members need more
spectrum to expand increasingly complex internal communications systems.
A lot of the private radio systems supporting electric company restoration crews
were never meant to support today's increasingly important data and voice
applications. The blackout that crippled the Northeast, Midwest and parts of
Canada is just the latest example of why utility companies need more spectrum,
says Bill Moroney, UTC president and COO.
Communication systems, including the ever-present private radio systems used by
power companies for communications among field technicians, were far from being a
cause in the blackout, he says. Those systems were responsible for the relatively
quick recovery of the systems in the Northeast, he contends. "Utilities' private
mobile land radio 'field systems' worked when public network wireless systems
didn't," he says. "Within one hour, a lot of public cell sites were down. They're
not designed for extended power outages," he says.

"Some leased lines were dropped because of lack of power, but every utility we
talked to said their private networks worked perfectly" during the blackout, he
adds. About a dozen utilities were involved. Power company systems are designed
for the worst-case scenario–extended power failures–and the systems have extended,
distributed back-up power supplies, he says.
The quick restoration, he says, relied on mobile communications and coordinated
efforts at both individual power companies and among the group of power companies
involved.

However, the quick restoration won't give so-called critical infrastructure
companies any more foothold on the additional spectrum allocation for which they
are waiting, analysts say. Utility companies for years have contended they were
passed over by the government when spectrum was allocated. UTC as recently as this
summer lobbied on Capitol Hill for more spectrum, as well as for better spectrum
coordination and interference reduction.

The organization contends its members are among the first responders, like
emergency services, that need to have spectrum ready to respond to emergency
situations. Detractors say utilities only want to get into the business of selling
spectrum to other communications providers as a profitable sideline business.

While utility companies' first priority is to make sure an event like this doesn't
happen again, the blackout shows that a case for additional spectrum for critical
infrastructure companies could be made, Moroney says.
However, it would probably be a tough sell. "There's no correlation between
spectrum and how quickly they can bring power back online," says Roger Entner,
program manager, wireless/mobile services at The Yankee Group. "There's only so
many technicians in the field repairing so many lines," he says. The blackout
recovery adds some weight to UTC's argument, but it won't turn the tide, he says.
"I don't see them [utilities] establishing big wireless networks to support
recovery operations" beyond private radio networks.

Even Moroney agrees the government probably won't see the event by itself as a
reason to allocate more spectrum to utility companies, even though President
George Bush has said electric utilities' facilities are in dire need of
modernization. Still, utility companies are dealing more often with data and
dangerous situations that require reliable and efficient communications. The
issues are doubly complex because of increasing security concerns.

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