Green Telecom XIV: Kentrox stremlines cellsite power management

When Kentrox was part of ADC, the company was known for its CSU/DSU and access gear, but the “new” Kentrox, formed from parts of three different companies, is taking a very different focus, one aimed at helping service providers more efficiently monitor their remote sites and reduce costs and energy consumption in the process.

Kentrox is now a standalone company, created beginning in 2007 from a series of mergers and acquisitions among Kentrox, Applied Innovation and the Optima business unit of DAX Technologies.

“We acquired a number of products that focused on operations and site management for mobile operators and wireline operators including remote site management for cellsites, controlled hubs as well as [central offices (COs)] and managing site equipment,” said Dan Murray, vice president of marketing. “It’s all the way from communicating with equipment that is there – HVAC systems that control heat, primary power, backup power, security -- to managing the equipment that is there -- including BTS radios, microwave radio, batteries and the power -- to make sure it is running efficiently and remotely.”

When wireless carriers, especially, were building out their networks, the focus was on rapid expansion of the footprint, to attract new customers and handle increasing volumes of traffic, Murray said. “On the back end, they have to address how to support all this stuff,” he said. “They can’t just continue to hire people and roll trucks all the time.”

But as wireless margins are squeezed and rapid growth is no longer the driving force of the industry, wireless network operators need to be more efficient. Kentrox is addressing those efficiency needs with its Optima Site Solutions product, enabling service providers to remotely manage and monitor a variety of wireless equipment including commercial power sources, battery backups, generators and fuel cells, as well as heating and air conditioning equipment, base stations, microwave gear, antennas, and even local loop equipment and backhaul circuits.

One of the purposes of remote monitoring is to reduce truck rolls to remote sites, Murray said.

“According to the [Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)], light trucks account for 62% of greenhouse gas emissions,” Murray said. “If a large wireless provider with a fleet of 1000 trucks was able to eliminate three truck rolls a week, that would represent a savings of 3.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.”

Working with research firm In-Stat, Kentrox conducted a study showing that remote monitoring can be used to reduce mean-time-to-repair by up to 50% by enabling problems to be diagnosed and/or fixed remotely, eliminating unnecessary truck rolls, Murray said. By reducing evening and weekend dispatches, remote monitoring can also reduce overtime costs by 30% and enable more efficient proactive maintenance, thus reducing exposure to future problems.

“What typically is the case, say a county has a power glitch and [the remote site] has to jump onto a generator or battery backup,” Murray said. “The wireless carrier gets an alarm in their [network operations center (NOC)], which then filters down to the tech in the field, who might be an hour and a half away. Our goal is to be able to provide that technician with the most current information, such as, ‘primary power is down, we’re on backup, and we have backup power for eight hours,’ so they know what needs to be done and when.”

In areas of the US, the system has been used by service providers such as CellSouth, which was able to monitor its entire network when Hurricane Ike struck Texas in the September of 2008, Murray said. “They knew whether or not it was safe to dispatch a truck and which sites to go to first.”

In an emergency, knowing which sites need immediate help is important, Murray added. He cites one example of a coastline power outage near Kentrox headquarters in Portland, Ore. The service provider was dispatching trucks, but technicians would show up at some sites to find out they were fine.  “This involved not only their own technicians but also third parties with whom they had agreements and contracts,” Murray said. “People were going to the wrong place and doing the wrong thing.”

In developing nations, the need for remote monitoring is even more acute, Murray said. “In the US, we are used to having power grids that are stable, that don’t go out so often,” he said. “In Africa, there are regions where there is no power or the power is going off the grid. What cellular network operators do for power is a combination of solar power as a primary source or in some cases, generators with batteries as the primary power source. The cellsite will have barbed wire all around it, and every two days, a person is going out there with fuel for the generators.”

Kentrox can improve the efficiency of these network operations by 30% to 50% by enabling them to automatically turn generators, managing batteries, and fuel cells, to limit the number of site visits.

“Overall, remote management helps wireless operators improve quality because they can identify things that might become problems before they are service-affecting,” Murray said. “They can be more efficient and save money at the same time, as well as be more green”

Optima offers different views of remote site functions depending on the job level, providing management with an overview, giving NOC personnel job-specific views and providing field technicians with detailed information for analysis and troubleshooting.

Previously: Part One of this series looks at AT&T’s green initiatives, while Part Two reports Callis Communications’ effort to reduce power used by voice-over-IP gear. Part Three reports on iControl’s efforts to help service providers leverage home security system sales to also promote home automation and energy savings. Part Four explores new technology from Telco Systems that uses solar power for data centers. Part Five looks at how Emerson Network Power is taking a comprehensive approach to reducing power consumption by its wireline and wireless customers. Part Six examines Verizon Business’ efforts to help its enterprise customers cut their energy consumption. Part Seven looks at Verizon’s internal efforts to build a greener network. Part Eight examines Qwest’s efforts to annually measure energy consumption. Part Nine tracks data center power consumption. Part Ten looked a Nortel’s pioneering efforts in telework. Part Eleven looked at MetaSwitch and the savings afforded by softswitches. Part Twelve examined Nokia-Siemens Networks’s broad green initiative. Part Thirteen show how Eltek Valere is making power systems more efficient.