TELECOMMUNICATIONS/Utility plugs into broadband to prepare for growth
As part of natural gas and electric deregulation, Dalton (Ga.) Utilities (DU) is looking to provide more services to its customers by forging into technology and telecommunications. DU, which has served Dalton and parts of a five-county area for 111 years, is now constructing an optical fiber broadband network.
The system is based on a core asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network capable of providing voice, data and video services. DU has prepared for growth by developing a network that is redundant and highly scalable, providing the resilience necessary for supporting an ongoing integrated communications business operation and backup in case of an emergency.
The wide area network (WAN) has significant utility management implications. For example, automated distribution, remote monitoring and remote meter reading are all within the technological reach of the system. That will allow for real-time pricing on electricity and natural gas, on both wholesale and retail levels, because it provides almost immediate feedback of electric loads.
The WAN also will be expanded to a municipal area network (MAN), which will allow DU to operate as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC). In addition to expanding the utility’s service menu, that move allows DU to: * pay for the MAN at an accelerated rate with CLEC revenues; and * diversify its revenue streams, enhancing its ability to weather loss of revenue in other utility sectors.
With lower cost, higher speed and enhanced reliability available to them, DU’s customers, as well as the entire community, will prosper in terms of economic development, according to Don Cope, DU president and CEO. “Modern telecommunications are vital to a community’s future,” Cope says. “Modern national and international industries must obtain high-speed connectivity to the global marketplace for the transfer of voice, data and video services. If that connection is not available, the community is eliminated from consideration as a location for corporate expansion. Without that connection, the community is very much at risk of losing its existing employers.”
For Dalton, long considered the world’s carpet capital, the network is essential for retaining the existing industrial base. That means retention of employers as well as electric and natural gas loads. For the residents of Dalton, the network means the potential of new jobs and new utility loads. Additionally, profits generated by the network will remain in the community, rather than being exported to someone else’s telecommunications headquarters.
Atlantic Engineering Group, Gainesville, Ga., which has served as DU’s telecommunications consultant since the project’s inception, is designing and const ructing the $11 million system. Pittsburgh-based Marconi is providing telecommunications equipment and other services. The network is expected to be completed in July.