Phone: +1 201 630 4520
Georgia, USA
The mission or purpose of America’s electric cooperatives is to power communities and empower members to improve the quality of their lives. The electric cooperatives in Georgia provide power for more than 70 percent of the land area and almost half of the over 10+ million residents of the state.
Georgia’s electric cooperatives have for over 70 years been dedicated to providing reliable, low-cost electricity to their member-owners on a not-for-profit basis. Their success comes not only from responsible power supply planning, but also proactive efficiency initiatives.
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One such initiative by Diverse Power created a mission-critical TETRA radio network in Georgia. This project started as a need to replace an analog radio system with limited functionality that was at end of life for support. Diverse Power began in 2011 acquiring radio channels that provide coverage across Georgia and into Alabama. Diverse Power provides power to more than 27,000 residential, commercial, and industrial members in 13 counties in Georgia and 1 county in Alabama.
Diverse Power was seeking a solution to provide an open standard system with scalability, reliability, flexibility, security, and redundancy. The requirements were for excellent voice quality, messaging, location services, and the ability to support data services. They wanted a spectrally efficient solution to meet the current needs and for growth. They were looking for user equipment that was suited to the working conditions, rugged, water-resistant, easy to use, and with long battery life. They needed dispatch capability with AVL able to interact with existing systems, interconnection to other radio systems, and geo-redundancy of key equipment. Future growth should support Smart Grid and a bridge to broadband technology.
Researching technology to replace the existing radio system, they discovered TETRA technology that was just becoming available in the US. This technology had been in use in Europe for over 10 years as the standard for public safety critical communications systems. TETRA provided as a core part of the radio system excellent voice quality, text messaging, data services, and AVL services. TETRA provided enhanced redundancy and reliability needed for a quality emergency communications system. TETRA also provided the ability to share the radio system with other users without compromising security or privacy of each user. This technology could not only significantly enhance communications for Diverse Power, but for the communities within its service area.
Diverse Power went through an extensive process of evaluating many different technologies and providers before selecting their technology partner, PowerTrunk.
Once selected, PowerTrunk provided complete system design and commissioning services. The combination of the PowerTrunk project implementation team and local partners went to work installing and commissioning the equipment. Local customization of the services provided a match to the requirements for coverage, redundancy, reliability, and security for each user group. PowerTrunk also provided future capabilities to support broadband technology.
One of the key new features for all the users is the gateway function of the mobile radio. This TETRA-only feature allows a portable radio to talk back through the mobile to the network. For economic reasons, the network is built out as a mobile network, thus portable radios sometimes do not have the power to remain connected to the TETRA network in all areas. The solution is to use the gateway mode in the mobile to allow the portable to talk to the mobile, which is still on the TETRA network in gateway mode, and the portable is passed through to the TETRA network. This extends the coverage of the portables. The portable maintains its own individual ID, GPS location, and emergency function. The dispatcher is able to still see all this information and communicate with the portable as well as the mobile acting as the gateway. This feature enhances the efficiency and safety of all users. This intelligent system provides high level features while keeping the user interface simple and easy to use.
Diverse Power built several radio towers throughout the service area in preparation for the launch of the new TETRA radio system which, combined with an extensive fiber network and radio licensing, enhances employee communications and enables line crews to conveniently communicate with each other, with law enforcement, and with emergency responders during post-storm power outages or other emergencies.
Simultaneously, Diverse Power partnered with the Harris County government to share the mission-critical radio system in order to improve safety communications for emergency responders there, where prior to assistance from Diverse Power, the county only had radio coverage over two-thirds of its landmass. Now, emergency providers can communicate throughout almost all of Harris County despite its numerous valleys and hilly terrain. This joint venture saved funds for both the co-op and the county while creating an advanced radio system with a larger coverage area that vastly improves communications for the county’s emergency providers. The Harris County Sheriff, local police, 11 fire departments, EMS, area hospitals, and the county wide 911 center all take advantage of this new system. In addition, the Harris County water system operates 25 large water tanks using TETRA data modems for communications of the SCADA system.
TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) is the accepted digital radio standard for critical communications. TETRA is an open standard where the focus is on meeting the critical communications needs of public safety and security agencies and an increasingly wide range of other market sectors. The technology has been standardized by ETSI (The European Telecommunications Standards Institute).