Author: ianus

EUTC participated in the 3rd virtual PNDC workshop on Smart Grid communications and cyber security on 25 July 2023. Julian Stafford, Secretary General of EUTC, joined the event and shared insights on EUTC’s journey towards the standardisation of technologies in Europe for the sake of communications and smart grid transition.

If interested in exploring these topics, watch the complete conference and access the presentation.

The needs of all critical communications services are having to become increasingly aligned as we move towards more commoditised technologies.  Thus, EUTC was invited by The Critical Communication Association (TCCA) to join their Critical Communications World (CCW) international conference in Helsinki in May 2023.

The event attracted over 7000 attendees, and although mainly from the Public Safety community, utilities have an increasingly presence there.  Much discussion took place with public safety telecommunications specialists to explore commonalities in the challenges we all face.  There was also the opportunity to meet with local regulators and representatives of Erillisverkot which operates the Vivre telecoms network serving all mission critical users in Finland including utilities.  A unique feature of this event is the strong participation by the Asia Pacific and Australasia regions, providing valuable opportunities to explore synergies with them, especially Chinese Power Companies.

The event brings together a large number of participants in the 3GPP standardisation process where initiatives of common interest to mission critical telecoms users can be explored and pursued.  The opportunity of a large face-to-face event was also used to host a hybrid meeting of the EUTC Regulation, Standards & Spectrum Group.

Recent months have seen a flurry of consultations from European Bodies and national administrations.  EUTC does not have the resources to respond to every potentially relevant consultation, so it focuses on those European ones with potentially the greatest impact on EUTC members, plus consultations by national administration either where requested by a member, or where the impact of a decision by one member state is likely to influence overall European thinking.

EUTC is seeking to build relationships within the European Commission, especially DG Energy, DG Connect and DG Grow which are seen as having the greatest relevance to EUTC, together with the European Parliament and Research Programmes.  EUTC responses to consultations are contained on the EUTC website so that members and other interested parties can understand our perspectives.

Perhaps the most important initiatives currently are those being undertaken by the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) on the relevance of Spectrum Policy to reducing carbon emissions and sustainability, and the importance of radio spectrum policy in combating the effects of climate change; plus their focus on future telecoms technologies.

Another recent development is a review of the effectiveness of the 2012 Radio Spectrum Policy Programme (RSPP).  Although many aspects of the policy programme have progressed, from a utility perspective, there has been little progress on the provisions in the original RSPP to address the spectrum needs of smart metering and smart grids, a situation EUTC is stiving to bring to the attention of European regulators and policy makers.

On the global stage, EUTC, in partnership with other regional utility associations made significant progress developing a report on Utility Radiocommunications Systems at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) meeting held in Mexico in May 2023.  All 193 United Nations (UN) Member States are entitled to attend meetings, and because reports have to be built on a consensus basis, progress is naturally fairly slow.  However, the simple fact that radio regulatory bodies from around the world are discussing the importance of utility telecoms is encouraging and raises awareness of the need for access to harmonised radio spectrum for utility operations.

The ITU-R (ITU Radio Sector) Delegation is lead by the Utilities Telecom & Technology Council America Latina (UTCAL) in collaboration with the Utilities Technology Council based in Washington DC, together with EUTC to ensure a global perspective to match the UN mandate.  The report now contains an increasing number of National Annexes to explain how utility radiocommunication requirements are met in different countries.  EUTC is able to reflect the interests of utility organisations in ITU Region 1 which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The importance of this work cannot be understated as telecoms and radio regulators around the world take their lead from the ITU, a process which culminates with their 4-yearly World Radio Conference, the next one taking place in Dubai in November 2023.

The most significant development at the last meeting of the ITU-R Working Party 5A (WP5A) which is developing the Utilities Report was the combining of work on Public Safety and Utilities in a new Working Group WP5A-3 which will deal with all ‘Mission Critical Applications’.

The next meeting of the Working Group will be in Geneva in September 2023 when it is anticipated that the Utilities Report will be elevated to the next status level of its drafting.