Utility Case Study

In Brief

Responsible for delivering safe and reliable power to 1,500 communities

throughout New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, Country Energy

had a pressing requirement to upgrade severely outdated radio equipment and

unify communications across several regions. Choosing to leverage the power of

software, Country Energy deployed the country's first commercial Radio-over-IP

network. Today, Country Energy operates a single virtual operations center that

facilitates unified communications across the company's widely distributed

operations. Dispatch and maintenance coordination has been substantially

enhanced, and improved communications with line workers helps to keep them

safe.

The Challenge

Country Energy is one of three utilities responsible for delivering power in New

South Wales, Australia's most populous state. To provide reliable electricity to

homes, businesses, schools and hospitals in more than 1,500 communities,

Country Energy manages Australia's largest power supply network, a system that

spans 95% of New South Wale's near 310,000 square miles. On a daily basis,

Country Energy's field technicians must operate within a full range of

environments, from deserts and mountains to plains and coastal regions.

Yet contending with harsh, disparate landscapes was only part of the operational

challenges Country Energy faced. Country Energy has only existed since July of

2001, the result of a merger between three different regional energy companies.

While they initially managed to consolidate a variety of radio networks through a

central interface, the company also acquired an additional regional energy

provider as well. Now, given the physical limitations of the original outdated two-

way radio console and their newest acquisitions disparate two-way equipment, it

was impossible to integrate the company's radio systems. Thus, Country Energy

was left operating two separate UHF radio networks and had an entire regional

operation that could not effectively communicate with the other operational

service centers and field technicians.

As Country Energy looked to integrate the acquired company's region, and

developed strategies to achieve significant growth, it became apparent that

replacing the existing analog networks was fundamental to maintaining mission-

critical communications capabilities. Cumbersome and rudimentary, the outdated

system was slow and inefficient, requiring the manual operation of switches and

connections. The number of available connections was also limited and

expanding the network to accommodate additional feature sets such as patching

two-way radio calls to emergency 911 operators would have required investing in

an already antiquated system with the purchase of additional equipment.

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