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September 6, 2007 / Edward G. Lana, Network World
UTC's latest research report, The State of Utility Fiber 2007, authored by KEMA Inc. for UTC, finds that utilities are expanding fiber only when partners help them share the costs of buildout, or when transmission-line builds present opportunities to install fiber cost-effectively. Utilities that sell excess fiber also sometimes find customers who can help recover the cost of a build. When fiber is added, utilities typically expand fiber routes and capacity through tradeoff agreements: either fiber for utility right-of-way, or an exchange fiber in utility cable for fiber in the partner's cable. |
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September 7, 2007 / Jim Duffy, Network World
Utilities view broadband over power line (BPL) services not only as an enabler of new revenue but as a benefactor of internal operations as well. BPL's greatest promise is its potential to extend broadband to approximately 2 billion rural inhabitants who are "unreachable" for modern voice and data services, Newton-Evans says. Yet BPL will also be a key enabler of advanced metering infrastructure and automated meter reading, and allow demand response and "Demand Side Management" programs to develop, the firm asserts. "Many observers see BPL as eventually able to replace other forms of remote asset management that include SCADA, Teleprotection, and the use of narrow bandwidth forms of Power Line Carrier communications," the firm states in a press release. |
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| The shape of 'community wind' |
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August 30, 2007 / Martin LaMonica, CNET Networks
The wind power industry is booming. With growing demand for renewable sources of electricity, wind power capacity grew 27 percent in the U.S. last year, though it still represents just 1 percent of the country's power supply, according to the Department of Energy.
For the most part, the face of the wind industry is 300-foot-tall turbines or entire wind farms planted offshore in Denmark or on the plains of Texas that provide power to the grid. The seaside town of Hull, Mass., outside of Boston, has taken a different tack by purchasing turbines to generate electricity for the town alone. Its two medium-size turbines supply a small chunk of the town's electrical needs, but Hull plans to become completely wind-powered within a few years. |
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| Alcatel-Lucent builds 'first' German WiMax network |
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August, 27 2007 / By Reuters
French-American telecom equipment group Alcatel-Lucent said on Monday it had won a contract from Germany's VSE NET to build the country's "first commercial" WiMax network in the Saar region bordering France. Work on the network--being implemented with WiMax license holder Inquam Broadband--would start this autumn, and commercial operations should start in January 2008, Alcatel-Lucent said in a statement. WiMax stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It is a technology for voice and broadband communications that avoids the need to run cables into homes and offices, making it useful in rural or thinly populated areas. |
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