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EUTC Spectrum Group Meeting on 12 May 2022 in Paris, France

The Radio Spectrum Policy Group meetings come in the framework of EUTC facilitating the debate over the necessity of harmonised radio spectrum allocation for utilities and critical infrastructure companies operating in Europe. EUTC’s work in the area of radio spectrum allocation policy includes contributing to the European Commission’s EU Radio Spectrum Policy Group and to the European Parliament’s Radio Spectrum Policy Plan.

On 11 and 12 May 2022 EUTC Members met for the first time after the pandemic for a Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) meeting in Paris, France. The meeting had over 20 attendees coming from within EUTC and external organisations as well, and was hosted at the EDF Research&Development premises in the Saclay area, located in southern Paris.

On the evening of 11 May, the Secretariat and Board of EUTC visited EUTC Member General Electric representatives in their Massy (Paris) premises, for a short informal meeting. In the evening, an opening dinner before the meeting took place, where all EUTC members attending the meeting were present.

Meeting at General Electric premises and opening dinner on 11 May

On Thursday 12 May, the Radio Spectrum Policy Group meeting took place in the morning, hosted by EUTC member EDF at their Research&Development facility. Attendees listened to a presentation by Mr Adrian Grilli, Spectrum Group Manager of EUTC and discussed together their requirements for radio spectrum allocation. Mr Eric Fournier, Chairman of the Radio Spectrum Policy Group of the European Commission, presented the single situations in each of the EU countries concerning radio spectrum for utilities, given the different address each Member State gave to it. After lunch, EDF took meeting attendees for a tour of their research premises.

The EUTC would like to thank all participants for attending the meeting in person or online, and EDF for hosting it.

Member interview – EMR Integrated Solutions

EMR Integrated Solutions has joined EUTC in January 2022. We had a chat with Alan Feenman, Sales Director, to hear about their activities and how they see their participation in EUTC.

Can you provide a brief background to EMR’s activities and objectives?

With headquarters in Ireland and a project delivery arm in the UK, EMR Integrated Solutions is a specialist OT communications, SCADA and instrumentation solutions provider. We design, deliver and support mission-critical core networks based on technologies such as DWDM, MPLS-TP and secure edge networks incorporating fibre, microwave, satellite and cellular mobile technologies. Our clients include household names such as ESB, SSE, NPg, Western Power Distribution, Northern Ireland Electricity, and renewables companies such as Greencoat. With over 40 years systems integration experience and 24/7 managed services, EMR helps utility customers to ensure that their communications networks can deliver the required operational data in a secure and timely manner.

In what ways do EMR’s objectives align with the goals of EUTC and the rest of its members?

Our raison d’être is to help energy providers deliver a smarter, greener power grid for their customers. We take utility providers on a digital transformation journey, enabling the migration of legacy networks to secure IP-based communications systems, which provide the type of high-performance, data-driven intelligence required to promote greater energy efficiency across the grid. More robust cyber security also plays a key role in our philosophy of building network architecture for next generation utility providers.

Alan Feenan, Sales Director with EMR Integrated Solutions

Why has EMR decided to join EUTC?

Our main objectives in joining EUTC centre are networking and knowledge sharing. Like other EUTC members, we face common challenges such as spectrum allocation and cyber security. These are burning issues for us and our clients, and through the EUTC we use the power of the collective to gather information and learn, and in turn share our real world experiences with the community at large. As we are based on a small island on the periphery of Europe, being able to tap into that European experience through EUTC members is vital for us.

What is EMR’s vision on how utilities telecom can help foster a net zero carbon Europe?

EMR is committed to a net zero carbon Europe. But these aren’t empty words. It’s about leading by example and they must be backed by action. That’s why we have taken concrete steps to ensure that as an organisation EMR will meet its target of net zero carbon footprint by 2030. Practical actions such as replacing ageing vehicles in our fleet with hybrid and electric models, as well as insisting that our supply chain aligns itself to a net zero carbon future have already been taken. We are very encouraged by the increasing number of organisations across industry who insist on their suppliers sharing their net zero carbon approach to business.

The energy trilemma comes back to bite!

Suddenly, the much talked about ‘energy trilemma’ has been given renewed impetus.

Carbon emissions and climate change, highlighted by the COP26 Conference in November 2021 have now given additional focus on renewable energy as Europe rushes to replace Russian oil and gas.

The resulting eye-watering increases in energy costs for consumers and industry are leading to increased poverty in the hardest hit parts of our communities, together with rising inflation and challenges to European industries to remain competitive in global markets where other regions have access to cheaper energy supplies.

All the while, energy security is under the dual focus of loss of dispatchable and storable fossil fuels and high profile cyber attacks. These include the collapse of the Vodafone network in Portugal after a hacking operation, disabling of thousands of modems though an attack on the management plane of the ViaSat network, and reports of the Israeli Pegasus Software being infiltrated into UK Government Electronic Devices to spy on high profile politicians.

These events throw a spotlight on the need for utilities to have access to highly available and extremely secure operational telecoms networks to monitor and control their increasingly dynamic energy networks. With intermittent renewable energy sources being connected at all levels of electricity transmission and distribution networks, often in remote locations, the challenge in managing the electricity networks on a second-by-second basis has never been more pressing.

EUTC Groups, Policy Papers and responses to consultations by public bodies seek to explain the complex technical requirements for these services in readily understandable terms, drawing attention to the urgency of the task. Access to suitable spectrum for dedicated radio systems is vital in some instances, but a wealth of technology is needed, ideally using ecosystems aligned to international standards to ensure the lowest cost to consumers of delivering the services. This also provides a large and consistent market for European Manufacturers as a springboard to address world-wide markets.

EUTC recognises that these challenges are too great for any individual organisation or association to resolve alone. Collaboration is the right way to proceed. This was well illustrated at a recent joint conference on Cybersecurity Standardisation with ENISA, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI which produced some excellent graphical illustrations of these challenges, one of which is reproduced below.

*Credits: Maria Foulquie, 15 March 2022*

EUTC at the UTCAL Summit 2022 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

From 29 March to 1st April 2022, the UTCAL Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event is organised by UTC Latin America (UTCAL) and is namely the biggest gathering of the utilities telecommunications sector of the region.

EUTC Secretary General Julian Stafford with fellow panellists at the UTCAL Summit 2022

The first in-person UTCAL Summit after the beginning of the pandemic took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the first weeks of Spring. EUTC was present at the event, represented by our Secretary General Julian Stafford. The 2022 edition gathered more than 600 participants coming from the utility telecommunications sector worldwide, including Government policy makers and regulators from both energy and telecommunications sectors. 114 speakers addressed a range of topics in plenary and four parallel streams in over 60 different sessions in Portuguese, Spanish and English with translation facilities provided

Julian Stafford presenting on 30 March 2022

Julian Stafford participated on a panel on 30 March titled “Telecommunications Technologies for the Modernization of Utilities“, discussing all the applications that different technologies may have in the development of smart grids in order to make them future proof. On 31st March, he also participated in a second panel, called “Technological Evolutions on LTE Networks“, during which LTE solutions for different frequencies were presented, together with Mr Gosta Kallner of the 450MHz Alliance and others.

The event provided important networking opportunities for all its attendees, and generated high-level debates on fundamental topics of the current moment, such as cybersecurity, Internet of Things and private networks.

Networking cocktails at the UTCAL Summit 2022

The UTCAL Summit is an occasion for EUTC to mark its presence abroad and outside of Europe, something that will help set the scene for further collaborations with UTCAL.

The importance of eSIM & RSP for utilities and telecommunications

Innovation in the field of SIM cards provides an excellent opportunity for efficiency yet at the same time a challenge if not standardised, especially for utilities and telecommunications! Deepen your understanding on the importance of eSIM and remote SIM provisioning (RSP) for European utilities and telecommunications.

Save the date for EUTC’s latest webinar on January 12, 2022 and join us from 13 to 14:30 CET! The webinar will focus on two recent advances in SIM technology: embedded SIM (eSIM) and remote SIM provisioning (RSP), becoming more and more important as we march toward a world of increasingly connected people and devices with the Internet of things (IoT).

Join various presentations from a number of key players in the SIM card field, including Stedin, Enexis and Kore along with EUTC, the united voice for European utilities and telecommunications.

The event is free of charge to all members of EUTC and European regulators. Non-members are welcome to register and can join at a fixed participation fee of 250 EUR (excluding VAT). It is an open meeting where quality experiences, realities and information will be exchanged in a transparent and trusted manner among peers.

EUTC General Assembly

EUTC truly believes in the potential of joining forces to foster energy efficiency, security and a net zero carbon future through developments in utility telecommunications in Europe.

To celebrate, we are excited to announce the first virtual General Assembly on 9 December 2021 from 16.30 to 18.30 CET.

The assembly will be exclusively for members this year. On the agenda is a recap of the past year, strategy for the coming year(s) and what this entails in terms of technical activities, advocacy and events.

Don’t miss this opportunity and join our General Assembly!

TCCA Critical Communications World 2021

Critical Communications World 2021 will unite mission-critical and business-critical end-users and manufacturers for the first time in two years.

Join Julian Stafford, EUTC’s Secretary General, in the Panel discussion “International perspectives on the mining, oil, utilities and transportation industry approach, from SCADA to IoT” on November 5 at 12pm CET.

The utilities, mining, oil and transportation industries all have very specific requirements about their critical communications needs and strategies. This discussion will bring perspectives from around the world on what is needed for effective operations.

LTE | Connecting Futures

Brussels, September 2021

EUTC congratulates Members WPD (Virtual Access) and Nokia and Partner JRC on a new LTE project to develop learning on:

– Confirmation that LTE is a suitable solution for providing communications for the energy industry
– Confirmation regarding using an Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) or Time Division Duplex (TDD) system
– Confirmation on bandwidth requirements
– Confirmation on types of data that can be passed over an LTE system
– Confirmation on antenna solutions for different situations
– Confirmation on training requirements and test equipment for staff

This project is the UK’s first multi-site, multi-vendor LTE trial designed to mimic on a small scale, and develop proposals for, the roll-out of a telecommunications network to support Active Management functionality. This is an important follow up to the a single vendor; single base station LTE evaluation trial at Portishead which provided data on the fundamental design and capabilities of LTE and illustrated how such a communications network might be integrated into WPD infrastructure. This showed that an LTE network is better equipped than a traditional narrow-band Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) network in the harsh environment [e.g. electrically noisy sites, RF interference, multipath etc.] to be found in the context of an energy network and that the likely data throughput would be as predicted.

The project comes to the end at the end of June. During the month of June , updates to firmware of all 15 Encore Customer Premises Equipment (CPE’s) to the latest release was carried out which provides additional security features as a result of PEN testing conducted in Sweden.

See more here.

European Utilities Telecom Council (EUTC) Aisbl is a non-profit organization delivering education, collaboration, best practices and thought leadership in telecommunication technology to utilities, other critical infrastructure providers and regulators, ensuring efficient, secure, sustainable and affordable smart infrastructure solutions. Moreover, the EUTC is the trusted advisor, source and resource of information and knowledge for its members and relevant policy makers regarding telecommunication technologies required by utilities and other critical infrastructure providers.

Mission critical M2M – it’s not all about speed

As next generation networks (such as 4G, 5G, LoRa and Sigfox) become more widespread, there is increasing interest from the utilities sector in the features in the standards that are targeted at IoT telemetry-type applications. New bearers can open up exciting new applications that cannot be served by today’s narrowband bearers. For 5G, ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC), network slicing and support for large densities of connected devices are some of the attractions.

A new white paper from TCCA’s SCADA, Smartgrid and IoT Working Group looks at the considerations for utilities looking to transition from narrowband to next-generation bearers. The paper recommends the top ten topics that should be taken into account by utilities planning to migrate their machine-to-machine (M2M) communications to a new bearer or bearers.

“There is a perception that moving to a new technology bearer is a necessary upgrade that will deliver a faster service,” said Nick Smye from Mason Advisory, who chairs the Working Group. “However, for M2M communications, mission critical capability isn’t simply about speed. Risk of obsolescence, network resilience, priority and pre-emption are all critical features for mission critical utility applications. It will be some time before 5G networks provide the required level of resilience and coverage, and, for example, any bearer needs to support priority and pre-emption, which is a key feature of TETRA.”

The considerations are ranked in order of importance, and reflect a utility sector view, as well as a European perspective in terms of the availability and reliability of communications infrastructure.

Read the white paper here.

About TCCA

On behalf of its members, TCCA represents all standard mobile critical communications technologies and complementary applications. Its members are drawn from end users, operators and industry across the globe. It believes in and promote the principle of open and competitive markets worldwide through the use of open standards and harmonised spectrum. It drives the development of common global mobile standards for critical broadband and maintain and enhance the TETRA Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) standard. TCCA is the 3GPP Market Representation Partner for critical communications and our members actively contribute in 3GPP working groups. TCCA supports the ETSI MCX Plugtests™, is a member of the MCS-TaaSting project, and supports the Mission Critical Open Platform (MCOP) project. To find out more, please visit www.tcca.info and www.critical-communications-world.com

Expecting the unexpected: Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure

Where does one start investing in and embedding cybersecurity in utilities? Cybersecurity is a growing industry with no near-end in sight. The need for cyber resilience is here to stay, more so with the digitalisation of critical infrastructure in Europe.

Deepen your understanding of cybersecurity for European utilities and save the date for EUTC’s latest webinar on October 22, 2021, from 12h00 to 13h30 CET! On the occasion of the EuropeanCyberSecurityMonth, the webinar will focus on various cybersecurity challenges and opportunities for utilities, with special attention on the application of EU’s NIS Directive 2 to critical national infrastructure, cyber issues around supply chain and real life examples of successful cyber resilience.

Join various presentations from E-REDES and a number of key players in the cybersecurity field, including Darktrace, global pioneer in cybersecurity solutions and University of Glasgow, an academic leader in the field.

The event is free to all members of EUTC and European regulators. Non-members are welcome to register and can join at a fixed participation fee of 250 EUR (excluding VAT). It is an open meeting where quality experiences, realities and information will be exchanged in a transparent and trusted manner among peers.