Power Management: Critical Focus

The telecom sector, especially the wireless part of it, is
witnessing an exponential growth in India. Current industry statistics put the
growth at 54% a year. The flip side of this market boom makes it absolutely
critical for telecom service providers to ensure that their services are up and
running at all times. Today, power management has become so vital that the
reputation and success of the service provider depends on consistent and
uninterrupted power for the network. Adequate backup is required for power
outages.

Thus, reliability becomes the foundation of the system. Power
failure can lead to system downtime, resulting in huge revenue losses. And
telecom as a segment cannot afford even a second's downtime. With increasing
need to provide more content , the need to streamline the power infrastructure
becomes even more important for service providers. Increased call handling
capability and growing telephone subscriber base has also led to the need for
more power at each of the cell sites.

The telecom industry has primarily two kinds of power needs; AC
power for Multi-Service Operators (MSOs), data centers and disaster recovery
sites, and DC power for Base Transmitting Stations. The power needs of service
operators also vary (the power consumption of mobile towers is comparatively
less than exchanges).

For fixed-line service providers, the main switch center (MSC)
consumes a lot of power and needs precision air-conditioning. Besides, there are
billing computers which need to be fed with power backup. Compared to centrally
located installations, BTS have different power requirements. Because they are
unmanned and exposed to changing climatic conditions, managing remote sites is a
big challenge. There are also varying levels of reliability and monitoring
required, depending on the criticality of the facility. The total power
consumption depends on the BTS configuration at a particular location depending
on traffic and subscriber density.

Depending on the requirement, the range of power solutions used
by service providers includes UPSes, inverters, gensets, diesel generators (DGs),
surge protection and power conditioning solutions.

CHALLENGES

• Reducing capex and opex: One of the biggest
  challenge before service providers is how to reduce capex and opex.

• Greater power density: With real estate prices hitting an all
  time high and the number of cell sites increasing, the challenge for the service
  provider is to ensure more watts per cubic cm, resulting in higher power
  density.

  Experts panel

  Pankaj Sharma, country general manager, APC Pradeep Pimpley, vice president, DB Power Ravi Badwal, vice president, telecom business, Emerson Network Power

• Remote power manageability: With multiple locations, it is
  now important for service providers to have a solution which enables control and
  monitoring of both software and hardware over the Web.

• Greater redundancy: Power management solutions to have
  inbuilt redundancy to ensure availability and uptime at all given time.

• Increase in the scale of deployment: The size, along with the
  number of deployment, has increased substantially. Also, outsourcing of cell
  sites for deployment, roll out and management is emerging as a huge trend to
  ensure increased focus on core competencies.

• Network Equipment Providers: There are seven key NEPs; all
  telecom equipment providers need to ensure to meet NEP requirements.

• High cost of maintenance: The present usage of DGs in some
  areas will become uneconomical due to their high maintenance costs. For long
  term usage, service providers have to look at other non-conventional
  alternatives.

SOLUTIONS

Next generation mobile wireless technologies are being deployed around the
world as they can offer both voice and data services at affordable costs and
thus can provide even greater access to communications services. With the
rollout of 3G services in India by the end of this year, there will be more
on-demand data capability on the mobile phone. Increased data exchange would
mean need for better quality of power and data availability at all times.

As 3G technology basically revolves around data communication,
the power requirement will go up. Apart from more number of cell sites, the
power consumption per site would also go up. Power management applications will
involve increasing the power density, which is compressing more power in the
same space, plus putting in value additions like energy management and
prioritizing loads.

The service provider is now seeking an integrated power
management solutions rather than point products. PM solutions that ensure
minimum downtime along with prompt service and sales support are seen as the
need of the hour. The embedded AC/DC power supply grid present in servers,
switches, and other devices needs to be monitored. Remote management solutions
will thus allow for pre-failure alerts. Service providers are already using
solutions that are remotely manageable, easily serviceable, provide predictive
failure alerts, and solutions that have lesser components and therefore lesser
chances of failure.

Air conditioning systems and large-scale power protection for
central office and network switching centers, and surge protection systems for
complete protection from power spikes have become the need of the hour.

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS AND DEPLOYMENTS

Mobile service providers are already looking beyond the presently available
power sources realizing the fact that any investment done on long term power
requirements will reduce the cost of operation in future. Overall, solutions are
becoming modular and scalable with focus on remote manageability becoming
increasingly important. With increase in efficiency of power management
solutions, running costs have taken a downward curve.

Many service providers have installed inverters, from 3 KVA to
20 KVA, having three-phase and single-phase output ratings, compliant with
stringent requirement of EMI/EMC interferences required in telecom operations.
These inverters work with 48 VDC input and have high DC to AC conversion
efficiency.

With the increase in size of networks, the need for centralized
and remote monitoring has become increasingly necessary as it helps in lowering
the cost of operation and maintenance. However, to manage complex and far-flung
networks from remote control sites, UPSs need to be equipped with heterogeneous
network management protocols, be flexible enough to incorporate diagnostics and
predictive failure technologies such as SNMP, RS-232, HTTP, JMODBUS (building
management integration interface). Serviceability of solutions is also a concern
so hot swappable batteries are decreasing the mean time to recover (MTTR)

Current trends indicate IT compaction and consolidation of
infrastructure. With increase in the number of cell sites and increased power
density, the challenge today is to pack more power per cubic cm in the available
space. In addition to this, the spiraling real estate prices has led to power
management solutions with smaller foot print and in rack mountable format
becoming critical.

Also, increased power consumption cost at the service providers'
end has led to the need to reduce wastage and look at more cost effective and
environmental friendly power sources like solar energy, wind energy and fuel
cell technology.

Ratnadeep Gupta


ratnadeepg@cybermedia.co.in