Was looking for info on power co's network connections. Not something they release a lot of info about. Found two that shed light on something I knew was a fact - but had no URL reference for.

http://www.state.nh.us/puc/22660e.html

http://www.ddj.com/articles/1994/9458/9458e/9458e.htm

As you can see from the above - power co's rely very little on the phone system for control processes. They lay their own fiber and control their switches and so on from this private network for the most part.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 15, 1999

Answers

The power companies rely heavily on phone communications to do business in every aspect of their daily work.

-- `` (~~@11.com), January 15, 1999.

Yet another post from Paul "Grasping at Straws" Davis.

-- Mo (transparent@motive.com), January 15, 1999.

I appreciate Paul's posts. We need all the information we can get to get a true picture of this most confusing situation. I love this forum because I feel like the folks on it are really intelligent, discriminating and open minded. (the opposite of the Gary North is a big fat idiot forum) If there is good news, lets have it, if there is bad news, lets have it. I don't want to get stuck in one place when the reality is it is ever changing and growing. But I do feel like the bottom line is prepare for the worst no matter what you hear, even if it sounds really good.

-- Lisa (logold@kdsi.net), January 15, 1999.

Dr. Charles Siebenthal, Manager of the Electric Power Research Institute's Y2K Embedded Systems Program, stated to the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem on 6/12/1998 that:

...all utilities depend to some degree upon telecommunications
service providers for inter-utility communications within
individual reliability regions. Initial efforts at contingency
planning for Y2K induced events have made us very aware of the
critical dependence of electric power industry response plans
upon electronic communications. We are sure that reliable
electric power is a critical feature of the contingency plans
of the telecommunications industry.

In other words, in terms of contingency planning -- which is supposed to be a Big Part of what utilities are doing to ensure minimal disruption due to Y2K -- working telecommunications is crucial. At the same time, the good doctor notes that electricity is crucial to working telecommunications. (Did anyone say, "interdependent connection"? "Domino effect"? Anyone worried???).

Dr. Siebanthal's full statement is at:

Telecomm & Power Industry

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), January 15, 1999.

Just one more thing that the Electric Companies have to check for compliance. Just because they have a private communications network, doesn't mean that there network equipment that operates it is compliant. Quite a few network hardware devices are not compliant. And quite frankly, from experience, it isn't always easy to locate or test this equipment.

So is there contigency to rely on the telecomms network or is their contigency to rely on their own network? What if both go bad?

Matthew Bonner

-- Matthew Bonner (Bonnermc@hotmail.com), January 15, 1999.

Just downloaded latest NAERC report. Quote: "Operation of electric systems is highly dependent on voice and data communications from external service providers." FWIW.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), January 15, 1999.

I'll venture a guess that use of private versus commercial communications systems varies between power companies. I know that Georgia Power has a private system and at one time was offering businesses in their service area access to the system as a substitute for in-state long-distance service. I also know that Carolina Power and Light maintains and operates a microwave based communications system between its generating plants, major substations and the company control center. I also recall seeing microwave equipment located at Souther California Edison facilities when I was stationed in SOCAL.

If these examples are commonplace or exceptions throughout the power industry is unknown to me. But a power having a dedicated communication system can make a big difference in that company's ability to continue operations in the face of phone system problems. The concept if "islanding" seems to have better possibilities if a company controls its own communications links.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 15, 1999.

Paul - the trend is going the other way - Pipeline and Natural Gas Magazine (a trade mag. for digging and repairing and laying natural gas - which apply the same SCADA technologies to gas that are in power (also, many (not all) power turbines are using natural gas) - shows many comm. and remote control functions at their control stations using celluar, telephone links, and networks "over dedicated lines" to the central station.

But I don't know full details of how many (hundred, thousand, tens of thousands) systems and valves these affect. Thank you for update, but I suspect it is like the NY subway system - a few very strongly interlinked computers running something that has been around since the previous century - all of which new stuff is replacing parts and pieces of the old stuff.

Just that nobody remembers how to do "everything" the original way. So recovery or change-back is slow, dangerous for riders and onlookers, and potentially catastrophic.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 15, 1999.

Well - I think semantics are confusing the issue here. I was speaking of the control network that reads voltages and sets counters and switches and so forth. Now they also have their business network, which runs over either dedicated lines or the Internet, and their business communications system - PBX or whatever that needs the phone system. Now the latter won't work if the phone system goes down in their area - but the former will work until the lines break. Different systems that can have the same names.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 17, 1999.