Nokia selected by Kansas City Power & Light to supply a mission-critical communications network to enhance its power grid
December 07 2017 - 09:58AM
· Project will enable KCP&L to bolster power delivery to its
800,000-plus customers in northeast Missouri and eastern Kansas
· Nokia Wavence(TM) microwave packet radio portfolio to support
high-bandwidth services such as video and emerging grid
applications as well as existing data traffic on a single
network
Nokia has been selected by Kansas City Power & Light
(KCP&L) to enhance the microwave communications network that
supports a range of mission-critical services for the utility's
power transmission and distribution grid. The new network, based on
packet microwave technology, is intended to support power delivery
and reliability for KCP&L's more than 800,000 customers in and
around Kansas City, Missouri as well as parts of neighboring state
of Kansas.
KCP&L is reinforcing its network using Nokia's Wavence
microwave packet radio family of technologies (formerly known as
the 9500 Microwave Packet Radio), which will enable the utility to
support all of its grid control applications alongside its legacy
data services using a single, converged network. This will simplify
the management and operation of KCP&L's network today, while
laying the groundwork for the introduction of emerging grid
applications in the future. This is covered by a 10-year agreement
to enable network expansions and upgrades.
The current deployment, covering 40 sites, is already underway
and is to be completed before the end of 2017. A second phase
consisting of 29 additional sites will follow shortly after.
Nokia's Wavence portfolio incorporates features specifically
designed to address the unique needs of utilities, smoothing their
transition from time division multiplexing (TDM) technology to
Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks. For the project, Nokia is
introducing the latest microwave packet radio technology as an
overlay to existing equipment. This approach will enable KCP&L
to expand their bandwidth to support new IP-based applications
without the need for new antenna infrastructure and without forcing
a disruption of existing communications, reducing costs and
facilitating a seamless, incremental migration from TDM to IP.
The Nokia Wavence microwave portfolio is the leading 'pure
packet' product portfolio on the market, and was developed with
utilities' stringent requirements for security, reliability,
latency and resiliency in mind. The network is managed by Nokia's
Network Services Platform.
This agreement builds on Nokia's strong track-record providing
mission-critical networks to utilities, having served more than 200
power utilities worldwide. It also highlights the progress of
Nokia's strategy of expanding its customer base outside of the
traditional telecommunications sphere, a key focus of the company's
diversification efforts.
Melvin Sam Charuvilayil, Supervisor Network Planning &
Engineering, KCP&L said: "Nokia's microwave packet radio
technology delivers the reliability and performance needed to
support our current operations, while providing the scalability and
flexibility to introduce new services in the future. 'Future Proof'
can be an overused term, but the fact that we can easily transition
all our TDM applications into the packet realm seamlessly, while
supporting our latency-sensitive teleprotection traffic, is
particularly appealing. We chose Nokia because of their commitment
to the utility industry and because its solution portfolio
incorporates microwave radio as a part of its end-to-end
communications architecture for utilities. Nokia's Network Service
Platform brings network management under one umbrella, simplifying
our provisioning and troubleshooting processes across our IP/MPLS
and microwave networks and helping us ensure reliable
communications to support grid operations."
Kamal Ballout, head of the Global Energy Segment at
Nokia, said: "Nokia understands the needs of
power utilities like KCP&L, and has dedicated a great deal of
effort to ensuring that our packet microwave technology can meet
the requirements today, while preparing networks for the
introduction of even more advanced technologies in the future."
Resources:
- Nokia Wavence Microwave Packet Radio
- Nokia Solutions for Power Utilities
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