ADRF had the privilege to speak at this year’s Experience POWER, one of the premiere conferences for the electric utilities and chemical process industries with over a thousand attendees. Our Director of Sales, John Shubin, was part of the ‘EP Technologies that Enable Efficiencies Throughout Your Generation Process’ panel to share the importance of private networking for utilities as they continue to innovate.
Even though telecommunication professionals have known about the benefits of private networking for years, it is a new concept for utility executives that aren’t aware of its capabilities or how to deploy one in their facility. WiFi is primarily what keeps utilities connected today but it is not sophisticated or robust enough to manage a high volume of data traffic and applications such as 4K video surveillance, robotics automation, massive IoT and much more.
Private LTE/5G networks are ideal for the new connectivity demands of modern utilities because they offer more bandwidth (and control of bandwidth), better security, and lower latency than public networks. But it can be challenging to know where to start because there are a lot of different components needed including shared or unlicensed spectrum, a core (which acts as the brain that is responsible for bandwidth and data management), and a SIM authentication to give access to the network for user’s devices.
They will also need to invest in, and deploy indoor wireless equipment like a distributed antenna system (DAS) to provide the necessary coverage for whichever frequency band is used for the network. Fortunately, ADRFs DAS supports all spectrum for private LTE or 5G, such as 900MHz, 700MHz and CBRS. Although CBRS was considered the most popular approach to building private networks initially, the challenges with orchestrating all the moving parts has been too much for some carriers and enterprises. That’s why ADRF joined the Anterix ecosystem as the only DAS provider to support the use of the 900MHz band to build private networks.
Experience POWER was a great opportunity to network and help industry professionals learn about private networks and understand why they must consider it a priority as they look to use technology to improve the experience for citizens and employees.