UTStarcom (News - Alert) has secured a contract with Shandong Electric Power Corporation, or “SEPCO,” for its recently launched NetRing Transport Network product portfolio, or NetRing TN.

 

Using NetRing TN solutions, SEPCO expects to build a data service carrier network for SEPCO’s Dezhou Grid. This marks the first commercial application of packet transport network, or “PTN,” in China’s domestic power industry.

 

Shandong Electric Power supplies safe and reliable electricity to support social and economic development and optimizing allocation of electric resources in the province by planning, constructing and operating Shandong Grid. It directly serves 7.63 million clients with power supply to over 93 million people.

 

SEPCO selected UTStarcom’s multiprotocol label switching - transport profile, or “MPLS-TP,” solution to assist with data transmission between the regional, municipal and county-level power grid assets in ten sub-cities within the Dezhou and Shandong provinces.

 

“SEPCO is committed to innovation, and as a result, we’re experiencing rapid growth in our data services,” Yong Zhang, chief engineer at SEPCO, said, adding that this is generating new requirements for efficiency, flexibility, reliability and manageability of our network bandwidth, which the company’s original MSTP network can no longer support.

 

The company is looking to the experience, expertise and forward-thinking technology of UTStarcom to accelerate the evolution of its data transmission technology from MSTP to PTN, he said, hoping that the advanced new platform will ensure that the company meets the needs of smart grid now and in the future.

 

During the three-phase deployment, UTStarcom is expected to apply two sets of NetRing TN725 and twelve sets of NetRing TN705 to the grid to form the core convergence layer 10 gigabyte mesh network. Also, ten sets of NetRing TN703 will be deployed.

 

Company officials said that the deployment of ten sets of NetRing TN703 will create an access layer of Gigabit Ethernet network that delivers high bandwidth efficiency and reliability to the Dezhou Grid and can provide complete administrative control over the electric data network.

 

It is clear that the need for packet-based core transport solutions extends far beyond traditional network services, said Peter Blackmore (News - Alert), CEO at UTStarcom, adding that SEPCO invested in the company’s TN solution because it could deliver increased network efficiencies while simultaneously lowering operating costs.

 

“This reinforces the value of UTStarcom’s new PTN portfolio and demonstrates an opportunity to expand our reach to broader customer markets, such as the power industry,” Zhang said.

 

UTStarcom is a provider of IP-based, end-to-end networking solutions and international service and support. The company enables its customers to deploy revenue-generating access services using their existing infrastructure, while providing a migration path to cost-efficient, end-to-end IP networks.

 

Last month, the company announced the debut of its expanded NetRing Transport Network product portfolio. The product is based on the latest MPLS-TP technology pre-standard being jointly defined by ITU-T and IETF.