UK Spectrum Policy Forum Adrian Grilli, Managing Director, JRC Ltd, London and Technical Adviser, European Utility Telecom Council, Brussels Spectrum Applications and Requirements: Utilities See more at: http://www.techuk.org/about/uk-spectrum-policy-forum All Rights Reserved

1. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Adrian Grilli
Managing Director, JRC Ltd, London
Technical Adviser, European Utility Telecom Council, Brussels
Chairman, Federation of Communications Services CNI Group, UK
Spectrum Forum – Cluster 1
Spectrum Applications and Requirements
UTILITIES

2. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – scope of sector
 PEOPLE – not a lot
Maximum about 3000 per company
SERVICES – Gas: transmission & distribution
Electricity: generation, transmission &
distribution (NOT supply)
Water: clean water supply & waste water
disposal, plus environment & flood
control.
DEVICES – lots!
Currently 10,000 per typical company,
rising to 100,000 or more by 2020.

3. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – contribution to social & economic value
 GAS – industrial & domestic fuel – majority of UK
households use for space & water heating.
Important fuel for electricity generation.
WATER – important for industry, but essential for life!
Waste disposal as critical as fresh water supply.
Power stations often require large quantities of
water.
ELECTRICITY – the economy depends on a reliable,
secure and cost effective source of electricity.
Social welfare requires electricity.

4. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – current, recent & past changes
 PAST – telecoms always important to support networks,
but utility networks historically dumb.
CURRENT – increasing use of telecoms, both fixed and
radio; but radio has unique properties in terms of speed
of deployment, cost and resilience.
FUTURE – networks are becoming more intelligent,
requiring massive increase in communications.

5. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – sector trends
Increasing societal dependence on utilities for quality of
and sustaining life in developed countries;
Infrastructure upgrades cannot keep pace with changing
demands, hence ICT applied to increase efficiency.
Cost of utility services and security of supply becoming
political focus.
Security of networks becoming an increasing cause of
concern as application of ICT makes networks more
vulnerable to attack.
All elements of the critical national infrastructure
depend on a reliable source of electricity.

6. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – use of technologies & spectrum
 FIXED v WIRELESS – large use made of both fixed and
radio communications: fixed uses copper, wireless and
communications through electricity cables.
TECHNOLOGIES – wide deployment of a variety of
technologies using both private & public networks.
telecoms always important to support networks, but
networks historically dumb.
SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS – data rates not increasing in
the same way as consumer demands. Data flows upload
centric: resilience, redundancy, distributed control vital.
SPECTRUM – lower frequencies essential to facilitate
construction of resilient architectures and widespread
geographic coverage.

7. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – anticipated changes – near term
Pace of change driven by energy & environment policies.
Carbon reduction targets will focus even more attention
on electricity as political pressure drives supply from
large centralised controllable generation towards widely
dispersed smaller scale intermittent sources of energy.
Interconnection of grids and interdependencies between
critical national infrastructures will require more
intensive deployment of telecoms, often by radio as
fixed networks cannot be rolled out quickly enough.
Balance between public and private networks in utility
telecoms will be influenced by perceptions of the risk of
the consequences of large scale power outages.

8. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum and
technology work for your business
Utilities – anticipated changes – long term
Distributed assets will increase the instability of
networks, requiring more advanced ICT solution,
distributed control and more time critical telecomms.
Deployment of fibre may displace some radio comms,
but most likely that growth in telecoms requirements
will always outstrip fibre’s ability to service requirements
on an appropriate timeframe.
Public networks may become increasingly consumer-
focused, leaving critical telecoms a niche sector.
Licensed low frequency spectrum (below 2GHz) will
become increasingly important for resilience.
Role of VHF spectrum in future scenarios uncertain.

9. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum work for your business
European Radio Spectrum Policy Programme (RSPP)
• Article 9.1 - An inventory
• Article 9.4 - A requirements study
Article 8.2
The Commission shall, in cooperation with the Member States,
conduct studies on saving energy in the use of spectrum in
order to contribute to a low-carbon policy, and shall consider
making spectrum available for wireless technologies with a
potential for improving energy saving and efficiency of other
distribution networks such as water supply, including smart
energy grids and smart metering systems.

10. Joint Radio Company:
Making the spectrum work for your business
EUTC Spectrum Proposal
Europe - multiple small allocations within harmonised bands:
• VHF spectrum (50-200 MHz) for resilient voice comms &
distribution automation for rural and remote areas. [2 x 1 MHz]
• UHF spectrum (450-470 MHz) for SCADA & automation.
[2 x 3 MHz]
• Lightly regulated or deregulated shared spectrum for
smart meters and mesh networks (870-876 MHz).
• L-band region (1500 MHz) for more data intensive smart
grid, security and point-to-multipoint applications. [10 MHz]
• Public microwave & satellite bands (1.5-58 GHz) for
access to utilities’ core fibre network or strategic resilient back-haul.