The old saying “out with the old, in with the new” has never been more appropriate for utilities in the age of grid modernization — particularly when it comes to communication. No longer can utilities rely on the siloed, narrowband wireless networks of yesterday to meet the demands of an evolving, distributed digital grid. Transitioning to private broadband can help provide the scale and efficiency utilities require to deliver new, connected services to customers and tackle aggressive goals like sustainability.

Utilities that are looking to adopt broadband communications infrastructure as part of broader grid innovation efforts may be venturing into activities and services that fall outside their core competency. As examined in the Utility Broadband Alliance (UBBA) Utility Rural Broadband Playbook, collaboration in sharing models and best practices for deploying modern communications infrastructure can help utilities expand broadband access and optimize its use for the benefit of all.

Defining the digital divide

The gap between haves and have-nots when it comes to reliable, affordable home broadband access — also referred to as the “digital divide” — became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. While high-speed internet became essential in facilitating remote work and learning amid social distancing and stay-at-home protocols, it was estimated that 42 million Americans lacked access.

For their part, utilities across the U.S. responded quickly to support customers and staff during the pandemic. While their services were essential, utilities typically allowed most of their employees to work remotely. The strength of the digital grid, where operators of the grid can monitor, manage and repair the grid safely and reliably, was thus demonstrated by the utilities that have some level of smart grid solutions in place.

Thanks to increased awareness of the digital divide and its impacts from the pandemic, policymakers are realizing the need to speed broadband deployment to every citizen. Utilities are increasingly seeking to be an essential part of the solution. The momentum toward rural broadband access provides an opportunity to upgrade critical infrastructure while driving needed utility investments in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), grid modernization, clean energy applications, smart city investments and other initiatives that depend upon that infrastructure.

Investments drive accessibility

To facilitate grid advancement, utilities have made investments in both wired and wireless telecommunications networks that have overlapping as well as disparate components. These investments have often been implemented on an ad hoc basis, with a single network serving just a single application, resulting in multiple wireless networks that may be a mix of narrowband for voice, some SCADA applications and public cellular to enterprise use. Additionally, AMI networks that have been deployed in the past decade may have primarily used a mesh network with unlicensed spectrum that depends upon a separate fiber network or public cellular to connect substations.

Wired fiber networks have often been deployed where high capacity is required — such as for connecting data centers. Wireless technology is frequently the most efficient where endpoints are highly distributed — such as for AMI, distribution automation (DA) and connections to remote areas of a utility’s territory. Wireless networks typically operate on a variety of spectrum bands as well, depending on utility security needs and available spectrum options within a service territory.

While the multitude of siloed networks that utilities sometimes manage can seem bewildering, the right planning and coordination can help turn these investments into a framework for better broadband deployment. By taking a holistic view that considers utility needs for private broadband connectivity as well as the enablement of broadband deployment initiatives, utilities can create a unified network of both wired and wireless technologies with fiber and other broadband infrastructure.

A roadmap for implementation

To increase their own broadband access while also helping meet the needs of customers in unserved and underserved areas, utilities have four basic models to consider:

• Colocation: Colocation involves the siting of third-party telecommunications equipment on utility infrastructure. This typically involves placement of fiber or wireless equipment on utility poles or transmission structures, or in substations, but collocation can also refer to laying fiber into utility ducts, underground conduit, or rights-of-way (ROW). Since most electric utilities own poles, ducts, conduit and easements in the ROW, enabling collocation is not only a familiar exercise, but a required one.
   
• Lessor of infrastructure elements: With many utilities investing in their own networks, there are opportunities to lease elements of those networks, including dark fiber, microwave links and electric power connections. Dark fiber or microwave links can provide an internet service provider (ISP) with the middle-mile connectivity needed for backhaul to enable retail broadband internet service. Revenue from infrastructure leases can return some or all of the investment to the utility and its customers, creating more return for the utility.
• Wholesale providers: Utilities can also provide wholesale broadband service over any unused fiber. Wholesale broadband service is a high bandwidth connection that ISPs use to connect their retail networks. In the analogy to the electric grid, this would be the electrical transmission service. Some electrical cooperatives provide wholesale service in addition to retail service. There are many wholesale providers in the telecommunications market, so utilities that enter this space can face stiff competition, making it a riskier investment.
   
• Retail provider: To date, most investor-owned utilities (IOUs) have indicated that they do not want to serve as an ISP but prefer to stay oriented on their core mission of providing safe, reliable utility services. Their broadband focus is rather on laying the groundwork for ISPs, making it more cost-effective for them to provide broadband to rural communities. IOUs — and their commissions — are therefore more likely to embrace models with less risk and less potential return allowing them to focus on provision of electric service.

Each of these models carries varying degrees of risk and return for a utility and is not mutually exclusive. An IOU could, for example, focus on collocation and infrastructure leasing. An IOU can also leverage its expertise and industry knowledge to partner with ISPs, and to support electric cooperatives and municipalities that are deploying broadband, in addition to leveraging their assets. These creative partnerships can be a powerful force for broadband expansion.

How it works with ISPs

There are generally two architectures that ISPs use to connect to consumers’ homes to provide broadband internet service: wired and wireless. Wired connections typically depend upon fiber optic cable to each home for the last mile as well as fiber connections to the internet. Wireless architectures (exclusive of satellite) depend upon radio wave communications to connect the home with equipment mounted on a radio tower; from there the connection to the internet is typically fiber, perhaps with a high-capacity microwave link on the way.

While the terminology for communication networks differs from that of the electric grid, there are rough parallels to the basic elements of a fiber network and the grid: the middle mile is similar to transmission infrastructure and the last mile is similar to the distribution system. Both middle-mile and last-mile infrastructure deployed by a utility can support an ISP providing home broadband connections to customers.

Wireless networks use fiber or wireless microwave connections for backhaul (the middle mile) and wireless technology for distribution into the service area (the last mile). Traffic from the radio access network (RAN) is aggregated and backhauled to the wireless network core and the head end using a fiber network or combined fiber-microwave network. Utilities with deployed AMI and DA equipment usually rely on wireless networks for the last mile to communicate with devices in the field. This architecture can also be used for private Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G to serve homes and businesses.

A win-win strategy

Since utilities are making substantial investments in communication networks to support grid modernization efforts, allowing this investment to also facilitate broadband deployment helps optimize the use of that infrastructure. The results generate benefits that extend to the utility, customer and community:

• Maximizes value of customer investment. Allowing existing assets to be monetized to support broadband deployment brings revenue back to the company, reducing overall ratepayer costs. When future investments are designed with a secondary use for broadband in mind, incremental investments in larger fiber cables, enhanced tower capacity and minor design modifications such as strategic splice points for last-mile fiber can further increase the value of the assets as a platform for broadband deployment. Greater amounts of dark fiber and other communications infrastructure mean more opportunities for leasing and lease revenues.
• Reduces deployment costs for ISPs. Making network infrastructure available to ISPs reduces the ISPs’ cost of deployment, saving the ISP the need to build its own infrastructure and duplicating that of the utility. The cost reduction improves the business case for broadband deployment and increases the potential for deployment to unserved areas. This dual use of the utility infrastructure increases the public benefit: customers will have the improved resiliency, reliability and other benefits of grid modernization even as they realize substantial economic, educational and social benefits of expanded broadband service into unserved areas.
• Stretches public dollars available for broadband. Federal, state and local governments are pouring billions of dollars into improving broadband access. Utility actions that reduce deployment costs allow public funds otherwise earmarked to defray these costs to be put toward other aspects of broadband projects, thus extending service to more consumers without increasing the investment.
• Enhances opportunities for smart city and connected community applications. Smart city and connected community initiatives bring together telecommunications, energy and transportation technologies. Examples include lighting controls, parking and traffic management, smart meter infrastructure, energy controls and other solutions that rely on broadband connections. Utility infrastructure used to enhance broadband supports and enables these initiatives. Healthy, safe and resilient communities provide economic and societal benefits which in turn benefit the utilities that serve them.
• Increases availability of utility programs and services for all customers. There is increasing interest and demand for energy equity: equal access to utility programs and services for all utility customers and fair and even distribution of the costs and benefits of those programs and services. The major concern is that though low-income consumers pay for such programs and services through charges on their electric bill, they have less opportunity to access them because of cost or rural location. Supporting broadband deployment throughout a utility’s territory helps provide every customer with access to any initiative that requires connectivity, such as dynamic charging for electric vehicles, power walls and time-of-use rates.

Allowing wired and wireless assets to support broadband benefits utilities in many of the same ways it does the customers. Grid modernization initiatives can be costly, and a private utility broadband network is a critical element of almost every grid modernization application — whether the network is wired, wireless, or both. Monetizing wired and wireless assets and creating a revenue stream for the benefit of the utility and its customers helps offset the cost of grid modernization initiatives.

One priority at the forefront for many utilities is that of sustainability. Utilities have started to add renewables to the grid which frequently leverage distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide critical grid stabilization, which in turn requires efficient and effective communication with these devices to realize the full range of capabilities. Thus, by investing revenue they’re generating back into their evolving grid strategy, utilities can move forward aggressively in meeting carbon reduction targets.

A clearer path forward

While every utility has its own unique obstacles and objectives, it’s clear that the path toward grid modernization will require collaboration. Private broadband will help utilities maximize resources and accelerate their journey on many initiatives, which calls for coordination in information sharing, evaluating business cases and developing standards for critical infrastructure innovation. By establishing a more common framework with communications infrastructure serving as the foundation, utilities will be able to achieve dual benefits in enhancing broadband access and enabling grid modernization.