Remote Control

With hundreds of thousands of wireless sites stretched across the county, many in desolate places, making house calls to fine-tune system settings just isn't realistic. Enter remote controls.

General control systems can monitor a variety of site functions from battery capacity to air flow. With cost savings a requirement in the industry today, perhaps the most important system to bird-dog and tweak is HVAC.

Everyone knows that energy bills spike in the summer when people crank up their air conditioners. To save money, temperature settings often are raised to keep the AC from kicking on continuously. However, in the telecommunications world, raising operating temperatures often isn't an option.

Site enclosures contain thousands of dollars of critical operating equipment, and that equipment requires certain temperatures to maintain its lifespan.

“If the HVAC system's not working, and the temperature is running too high in a remote site, the battery life can go down,” said Stuart Brager, Quest Controls executive vice president (www.questcontrols.com), marketing and sales. “If it's running too cold, then the batteries won't charge to their optimal level.”

Consequently, site operators often have to run air conditioners even when it's not that hot just to maintain an exact temperature or humidity.

Point & Click

Control systems help keep all of those settings straight, but without remote ability, technicians would have to go out to each site every time they wanted to change a temperature set point.

A remote-control system allows hundreds or thousands of sites to be linked to the same control center, where technicians can monitor or change settings and react to alarms.

If a carrier installs new batteries at all of its sites that require 72°F instead of 78°F, technicians can change the values from the control center, saving trips to the sites.

“An air conditioner is like anything that is typically found in a data center: It can be hooked to a building-management system,” said Bassam Shadid, Stulz of North America (www.stulz.com) president. “You have to look at the software, protocols and compatibility between the way data is transmitted with Brand A versus Brand B.”

Shadid said a common protocol for air-conditioning controllers is a mode bus system, which is a language used between the unit and management system. If technicians need to monitor the air conditioner, Stulz provides them with programming keys.

“All he has to do is find the key and then program that into the main screen,” Shadid said. “Then, the person in charge of monitoring that facility could click on that unit and see where the alarms are, if they exist, or what the actual conditions are.”

In certain situations, Shadid said, the technician could change those conditions to meet a specific need.

The remote-control center gets information from the HVAC control systems through modem communication, which can run via a dedicated point-to-point line or, less commonly, a dial-up connection. However, what if there were a way to change settings and troubleshoot wirelessly?

Wireless Control

Carrier (www.carrier.com) is working with IBM to create (www.ibm.com) air-conditioning systems that could be controlled or checked via a WAP-enabled device. The companies will begin testing their idea later this year.

What would this sort of wireless control mean to a wireless site?

It would allow technicians to receive alerts automatically, instead of a control center having to forward that information via SMS or a phone call. This could allow for faster response times to critical problems and cut back on the workload at the control center.

“Remote access is particularly important to a service technician or a maintenance manager who may spend a significant amount of time traveling between sites,” said Mary Jo Dunn, Carrier manager, Web-enabled e-products.

The wireless control system also would allow techs to turn systems on and off, change temperature settings and control fan speeds. All of the controls run through Carrier's back-end server, MyAppliance.com.

“The MyAppliance service contacts the device and changes the settings or retrieves the information required,” said Robert Morgan, Carrier's MyAppliance program leader.

Wireless carriers seemed intrigued by the idea of wireless system controls. Alltel's (www.alltel.com) spokesman Jon Parham said that Alltel doesn't use any remote-control system, but that its research branch, Applied Technology Center, might be interested in testing a wireless system.

Larry Sipovic, U.S. Cellular product-development manager, said he was (www.uscc.com) aware of other forms of wireless control systems but that most of them were targeted for the residential market. Carrier and IBM will market their system for both residential and commercial markets.

“Are we interested in these types of applications?” Sipovic asked. “Definitely. Do will feel that there is a future for these applications? Definitely.”

Stulz's Shadid said wireless control might make troubleshooting less difficult for technicians.

“It's probably an easier way of doing it,” he said. “It's a good thing if you can eliminate a lot of the wiring involved between units.”

However, Shadid said he would be concerned about the security of such a system.

“I'm sure there's going to be access passwords that allow certain users to come in through their wireless phone to change set points,” he said. “If that is not taken care of, you could have the whole center taken down by some person who is misusing the system.”

Morgan said security would be taken care of through a series of checks.

“The operation is the same as using your telephone or accessing the Internet,” he said. “In both cases, a connection is made to the MyAppliance server that performs various security and access-rights checks. It checks to see that you are who you say you are and have the right to do what you're attempting to do.”

U.S. Cellular's Sipovic said that his company now uses a control system that has a telephone interface. He said a wireless remote-control system could be a great improvement.

“I can see that as being a big difference,” he said. “And, I could see it as having some very positive market ramifications.”