Tag: Motorola

Xcel Energy
XEL
, the big investor-owned utility serving eight Western and Midwestern states, has signed an agreement to lease 900 MHz spectrum from Anterix, the private broadband company. The deal is worth at least $80 million over 20 years, with two 10-year options to renew.

Xcel Energy plans to use the spectrum to deploy a private LTE network to support its grid modernization efforts for its 3.7 million electricity customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers.

“Our commitment to a clean-energy future requires a modern grid capable of integrating a significant influx of distributed, renewable energy resources,” said Tim Peterson, Xcel Energy’s senior vice president and chief technology officer. “Secure, robust broadband communications is a critical element of the modern grid.”

In the utility space this is a seismic shift. It portends a bright future for Anterix and those in the telecommunications buildout space.

Robert Schwartz, president and CEO of Anterix, said in announcing the deal, “Xcel Energy is now the fourth major investor-owned utility to take that initial step toward joining the 900 MHz private broadband movement.

“Momentum continues to build, and as additional utilities follow suit, the opportunities for collaboration and scale will grow as well.”

This is the second big step for private broadband networks in a short timeframe. Last month saw the Utility Broadband Alliance (UBBA), hold an extraordinary summit in Costa Mesa, California, featuring its founding organization, Anterix, and a demonstration of the technology, showcasing the creativity of the integrated design-build company Burns & McDonnell, which built a three-day, real-life, real-time exercise, known as Plugfest.

Broadband’s Seminal Moment

“I went to a marvelous party,” so sang the great British entertainer Noel Coward in 1938. That is how the UBBA-Plugfest summit struck me: I went to a marvelous event.

UBBA and the Plugfest showcase marked, I believe, a seminal moment in the history of private broadband LTE (4G) networks. This produced a celebratory atmosphere: A need was being recognized and filled.

The size of the attendance was noteworthy but so, too, was its makeup. These weren’t just the aficionados of wireless broadband getting together, but a conjoining of the wireless broadband world with the electric utility world. One-third of the attendees were from utilities across the country, and many of them from C-suites.

As Bobbi Harris, UBBA’s energetic executive director, said, “Internet technology met operating technology, and they know they need each other.”

Anterix’s Schwartz said, “Seeing the wild success of the utility industry embracing UBBA is like seeing your child go off to college and thriving.”

UBBA began with lunches, dinners, and telephone calls over several years between broadband executives and utilities which were beginning to realize they had a need for secure, private networks.

Enter Harris, a veteran telecom professional who had worked with the Utilities Telecom Council. According to Harris, UBBA’s formation was discussed among a diverse group of industries, led by Anterix, which included utilities Ameren
AEE
and Southern California Edison; Burns & McDonnell; the digital communications company Cisco; and telecoms Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola.

The embryonic alliance offered Harris the top job in February 2020, and UBBA was off and running. Early on it was financed by Anterix, but it now stands strongly on its own.

Harris told me there was also input and guidance from the Southern Company and its subsidiary Southern Link, which pioneered LTE broadband for Southern Co.’s four operating companies. Alabama Power, one of those companies, hosted the first UBBA summit in 2020, attracting 150 people, at their headquarters in Birmingham.

The centerpiece of the summit was, and will remain, the hugely innovative Plugfest, where a plethora of wireless companies collaborate on a real-life, real-time demonstration of a broadband system in operation, playing out various scenarios from push-to-talk to simulated cyberattacks and operating emergencies.

Olson Explains Plugfest

Matt Olson, vice president of Burns & McDonnell and a Plugfest organizer, described this year’s three-day event this way, “Day one was training on what the user is seeing.”

“On day two, eight different use cases were delivered working simultaneously during an earthquake, while lower uses went on unimpaired,” Olson added. “The third day showed the push-to-talk facility operating even when the sector was crowded or there was other congestion.” A huge ecosystem of name brands contributed equipment and personnel to Plugfest which is assembled by volunteers over many months as they integrate the equipment into a functioning network that might be found in an electric utility.

Plugfest ran on the critical 900 MHz spectrum from Anterix. Its buildout was architected by Olson.

Hardware was provided by a plethora wireless companies from what Anterix has named “the ecosystem of competitive but cooperating entities.” At UBBA these included network infrastructure provided by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola Solutions
MSI
, NetScout, Cisco, Catalyst Communications, L3Harris, Streamwide, Itron
ITRI
, and NovaTech Automation.

Modems and other devices were provided by GE, Hitachi Energy, Council Rock, 4RF, BEC, Cisco, Multitech, Digi, L3Harris, Samsung, and Motorola Solutions.

I have attended many, many utility conferences over the years, but this one was special in my view. It had about it the sense of being in on the creation — and that is special. Next year’s conference will be in Minneapolis, from Oct. 10-12, and will be hosted by Xcel Energy. Southern California Edison hosted this year’s summit.

As Noel Coward also sang about the party he had attended, “I couldn’t have liked it more.”