ULTRA-NETª is a satellite communications system which provides reliable dedicated links between a company’s control centers and remote data acquisition, monitoring and control points. ULTRA-NETª improves reliability by providing a low cost, real time, monitoring of critical operating parameters, and enabling the automation of systems that are dispersed over a wide geographical area. It also can be used to augment or replace older communication systems (which can help justify the cost of automation projects).

Ultra-Net has already been demonstrated and proven in full scale use for over 3 years in SCADA applications by Southern California Edison (SCE), linking nearly 200 remote terminals at 150 substations to central control centers (equipment monitoring, load switching, etc.). There is a great deal of operational data available.

The system is not affected by terrain variations such as mountains, hills and river valleys that impede radio and microwave communications. It eliminates the need to acquire and access heavily congested radio frequencies, and it eliminates the high cost of leased telephone lines and the cost of substation ground fault isolation. ULTRA-NETä systems can be installed in environmentally sensitive areas that can not be accessed for the installation of landlines, radio, or microwave towers. The documented avoided cost savings at SCE were in excess of five times the cost of equipment and labor of alternative technologies.

Another positive feature of ULTRA-NETª is that high wind, ice and snow loading do not adversely affect its performance (in marked contrast to ground phone lines). Nor are systems affected by flooding, as are buried lines and vaults. SCE’s system has survived Santa Ana windstorms with wind speeds over 100 mph, with no effect on performance.

Ultra-Net is designed for very specific niche applications — SCADA systems in electric, gas and water utilities, and oil and gas pipelines. It likewise is well suited for distribution automation and weather or hydrological data collection.

The small earth station units are self-contained, and are easily installed with mimimal site impact and with direct interface to existing user equipment , with only DC power and RS-232 data cables as the only connections. The system uses commercial geosynchronous satellites, so it provides uninterrupted dedicated communications, polling every remote unit every 4 seconds.

Edison Technology Solutions (ETS) is offering the system commercially, and will develop the requirements and cost proposal, do the installation, and provide service and support.

Contact: Jerry Barich, 626.815.0503, jbarich@edisontec.com
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