Wi-Fi Interference Threat in 6 GHz Band Concerns Utilities
Utilities remain worried about the pending rollout of Wi-Fi and other unlicensed in the 6 GHz band and worry about the difficulty of getting a handle on interference, executives said Monday during a Utilities Technology Council virtual conference. The FCC approved unlicensed use of the band in April with further changes expected (see 2008200040).
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Potential interference “is a big deal” for Southern Co., said Larry Butts, telecom engineering manager. The utility has about 160 license paths in the band carrying “a good deal of our core aggregation and backhaul for our electric grid,” he said. Southern is working with UTC, the Edison Electric Institute and others and has been active in the FCC proceeding, he said. “Unlicensed devices will impact the 6 GHz and it won’t take a whole lot to do exactly that.”
Monitoring interference will be difficult, Butts said. All utilities know the problems with tracing “RF ghosts,” interference issues that come and go and disappear once an investigation starts, he said. “Imagine doing that for devices that are in the tens of millions spread across your footprint.”
Duke Energy had more than 200 licensed paths in the spectrum, said Kevin Hursey, engineering manager. “We’re very concerned about the impact,” he said. “We do expect it will cause issues for us,” first in urban and later in rural areas, he said. Duke is working with vendors on new tools it may need to monitor interference, he said. “It’s not going to be easy,” Hursey said: “It’s just going to take a lot of work and a lot of manpower.”
Pinpointing interference will be “very time consuming” and “repetitive,” said David Standley, American Electric Power managing director-telecom. Fears may be overblown, but he said he doesn’t think so. “If we start seeing a lot of [interference] across the country at different utilities, we’re going to have to push back on the FCC a little bit,” he said.
The utility executives are scoping launch of private LTE networks. Southern is the furthest along. Southern was using "more and more wireless broadband" for controlling its grid as a replacement for land mobile radio, Butts said. “We had to have something that was more reliable, more secure,” he said. The wireless carrier networks aren’t built for utilities, though they’re improving, he said. The utility operates about 1,200 LTE sites, Butts said: “We use it for any type of wireless remote connection.”
AEP expected to have an LTE network in place by now, “but that didn’t pan out,” Standley said. “We can’t find an affordable option." AEP covers 200,000 square miles across 11 states, he said: “Trying to find contiguous spectrum has been a very expensive endeavor that I just can’t justify.”
Duke sees the value of a private LTE network but has the same problems as AEP, Hursey said. For a large service territory, “the cost is pretty staggering,” he said. “We are still investigating” and a pilot is possible, he said.
The companies are exploring broadband. Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative surveys showed its rural members needed better internet connections, and that's truer under COVID-19, said Lee Ayers, vice president-engineering. “Five or six years ago when we started this, the general public thought of internet connections just as a convenience and a luxury,” he said: “It’s becoming a necessity.”
Duke is investigating rural broadband and sees the “advantages” of partnership, Hursey said. Southern is involved in pilots for autonomous vehicles, traffic control systems and for public safety, Butts said.