Resources
UTC surveys our members, other utilities and subject matter experts from around the world to provide meaningful industry research reports.
Ongoing research efforts allow us to keep growing and refreshing our offerings. UTC Research Reports are available to purchase at a large discount for our member utilities and at full price for non-members. Click each image below to learn more about the research and pricing options.
OPGW Grounding Techniques for Safe Fiber Splicing
UTC Fiber Leasing Study
Utility Applications and Network Report
Underground Fiber Report
PLTE Broadband Report
Utility Operations Cybersecurity Study
Tower Guide Book
Joint Use Study
Optical Ground Wire
ADSS Fiber Life Cycle
Utility Telecom Networks Key Performance Indicators Benchmarking Study
2016 Research Report
UTC Network Baseline Survey Highlights of Findings
Check out all the past UTC research available to purchase by clicking here.
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Member White Papers
Utility Telecoms Asset Management Commissioned by FNT Software
Utility telecommunications deployments are big, complex, and long. Utility telecommunications outages can be big, complex, and difficult. Yet, telecommunications underpin nearly all grid modernization initiatives. Designing, deploying, and managing modern utility telecommunications networks demands detailed and thoroughly accurate planning. And planning demands data.
A unified telecommunications asset register can enable the detailed and long-range planning that is required for effective planning and speedy outage resolution. The asset register can contain all telecommunications assets in a utility and track the incredibly complex number and type of relationships among assets and services. The asset register’s digital twin capability – representing the physical infrastructure and a logical model for connectivity and services – can enable simulations of outages for better continuity planning and to identify previously unobserved single points of failure. This up-to-date information can be provided to users across the organization to ensure that a utility manages its operations and business based upon a shared understanding of its asset base.
This UTC white paper examines how a single unified and reliable asset and resource manager can deliver benefits across a utility’s telecommunications infrastructure. How knowing the relationships among assets, services, and servers can enable more detailed planning for maintenance activities, better network resiliency, and more efficient staff utilization. High visibility of assets and their relationships enables faster deployments, quicker error resolution, greater understanding of utilization, and savings from reducing unnecessary travel and orders.
Keeping Time: The Future of the Network
A sea-change is in full swing within utilities. Generational changes are impacting telecommunications networks requiring increased bandwidth and security. But older telecommunications equipment may no longer be adequate to support an industry-wide shift to packet-based timing. While efficiency is increasing with the applications being introduced, the infrastructure of the networks has not seen enough change in the last few decades.
Just as the telecommunications, data center, and substation architectures are changing, so too are the technologies and equipment for synchronizing networks. Utilities must examine current synchronization architectures that may not be engineered to support new timing technologies. That examination includes considerations such as:
- Network Evolution (Transport) – Carrier Ethernet, MPLS, MMW-Radio
- New timing protocols – IEEE-1588v2 and Synchronous Ethernet
- Wireless (5G, Private LTE)
- Fixed Wireless
- Digital Substation Timing
- Mitigating Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Vulnerabilities
This paper highlights some critical drivers for modernizing network synchronization provides critical insight on what is important about these modern technologies and outlines simple solutions to modernize your synchronization network.
Cutting Through the Hype: 5G and Its Potential Impacts on Electric Utilities
This paper, commissioned by UTC and its global affiliates, focuses on the emergence of 5G communications and whether and how utilities—particularly electric—will be impacted.
The new paper—“Cutting Through the Hype: 5G and Its Potential Impacts on Electric Utilities”—frames the numerous issues and challenges electric utilities across the globe confront in adapting as the wireless industry transitions to 5G services. The paper was authored by the Joint Radio Company Ltd. of Coventry, England and was commissioned by UTC and its global affiliates: Africa UTC, European UTC, and UTC America Latina.
Utility Uses for Wireless Spectrum
Evaluating the Importance of Spectrum in the Utility Sector
This report examines the current state of play for utility spectrum access: what spectrum is available, how utilities use it, and recent trends in utility spectrum needs. Detailed case studies look into the telecommunications approach at two large and sophisticated utilities.
Reliable energy delivery is fundamental to all critical infrastructures. Energy delivery can only be reliable if the telecommunications are reliable. And utilities need a stable and clear spectrum to achieve their telecommunications, without which reliable energy delivery will become nearly impossible.
Cyberready: Protecting Mission-Critical Utility Communications
It’s a date those in the energy sector know well: August 14, 2003. On that day, more than 50 million people in eight states and portions of Canada lost power when a high-voltage line in Ohio softened, sagged, and brushed against some trees. The fault, combined with a cascading series of technical issues, caused the largest blackout in North American history.
Selecting A Private Mobile Radio Technology To Solve Critical Machine to Machine Communications Needs
Utilities and other critical infrastructure (CI) industries around the globe are being challenged to improve service delivery while at the same time deal with security threats that aim to take down their operations. Compounding these challenges are the pressures from investors and regulatory agencies to streamline operations and reduce costs all while dealing with the complexities of a retiring workforce. To conquer these formidable challenges, critical infrastructure industries require greater visibility into their operations and are looking to leverage Machine to Machine (M2M) communications technology & communications to provide the means to increase the automation of their operations.
Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management For Utilities — Roadmap For Implementation
This paper provides a roadmap tailored to the utility space on how to successfully organize supplier management activities while addressing associated security risks. It is based on practical experience, numerous discussions with utilities and vendors, and recently published standards and best practice documents.
ConVergence Salt River 700 MHz Field Test Report
White Paper on Upper 700 MHz A Block Spectrum
Sharing 700 MHz Public Safety Broadband Spectrum With Utilities
Quality of Service in Power Utility Telecommunications Networks.
This paper details the challenges many power utilities are facing as they transition critical services from legacy TDM to IP/Ethernet core networks, thereby combining IT and OT traffic onto a single, converged network. While Quality of Service (QoS) is a crucial requirement that must be considered from the beginning of such a migration, this paper explains why it becomes more critical when traffic has to go through lower bandwidth links.
