UTC advocates on behalf of its member utilities to ensure that lawmakers and regulators at the federal and state levels understand and address the unique needs of our members. UTC works in partnership with UTC members to develop strategies and improve proposed or current regulations and legislation to help our members fulfill their primary mission: to provide the safe and reliable energy to its customers.
UTC provides support for the information and communications technology (ICT) functions of critical infrastructure industry (CII) entities. UTC believes that CII entities must have ICT policies that recognize their needs. UTC leverages on the technical, legal and regulatory expertise of its members and staff to deploy value-added services and solutions to increase awareness and capabilities within the utilities ecosystem.
Why Utilities Need Spectrum
- Utilities rely on wireless communications to support the safe, efficient, reliable and effective delivery of electric, water and gas services.
- Wireless communications systems need spectrum, and currently utilities lack adequate spectrum to support existing and new communications needs.
- An estimated 30 MHz of spectrum is needed in a frequency range below 2 GHz to meet the existing and future communications needs of utilities.
- Utilities lack alternatives for spectrum for wireless communications.
The Truth About Utility and Other Critical Infrastructure Industry Telecom Capabilities and Needs
As utilities and other critical infrastructure industries (CIIs) move forward in the development and deployment of smart grids, marketing ploys that misrepresent their capabilities and needs have been implemented that are designed to skew both decision making and regulatory oversight. The marketing ploys ignore the fact that CIIs will ultimately choose to build their own networks or buy telecom services based upon technical requirements, costs and levels of service required. CIIs have and will continue to utilize others to provide telecom services for certain aspects of their operations and smart grid deployments based upon these criteria. For many of the reasons identified in this paper, CIIs will meet their telecom needs by expanding their existing networks. As described below, the rhetoric which has been introduced into the marketplace tends to understate the real capabilities of utilities and other critical infrastructure industries and overstate the capabilities of others. UTC has separated fact from fiction in the Q&A in the document below.
Read more.. Truth About Utility Telecom Capabilities and Needs
