Addressing the full range of functionality needed
The UK DNOs (distribution network operators) own and operate the infrastructure and power cables that connect homes and businesses to the National Transmission System. At MMX we have a good understanding of the needs of such customers built on our experience to deliver the specialist telecom expertise required.
For example, we understand the pressure to deliver on promises that have been made within the regulatory frameworks. Clients in this sector also need a partner that they can trust to understand the health and safety requirements associated with working in substations. In addition to this, the customer is likely to require a high level of redundancy and resilience to be built into the design and build of the telecom network and for specialist hardware that is hardened to withstand difficult environments. From a technical perspective, such clients expect a partner to be familiar with the encapsulation of dnp3 SCADA over TCP IP transport in order to deliver all ethernet / IP modernisation. MMX can meet all of these requirements because of our experience in the sector and deep understanding of operational technology.
All of the DNOs in the UK have their own internal telecom teams and our model is to support these teams where required with our network design and build out experience and expertise. This covers all of the transmission technologies used in such environments such as microwave UHF/ VHF over IP, SHDSL, ethernet, fibre and satellite. For the DNO this is a great solution as we can integrate to become an extension of in-house teams.
Security is one of the most obvious concerns for this sector and recently MMX has worked with the relevant UK government agencies to ensure that what we deliver is considered secure including the management of cryptographic keys. We have also delivered larger design projects where routing protocols such as BGP (border gateway protocol) and OSPF (open shortest path first) and more recently Babel are used.
Some clients in this sector also need to find an alternative to the legacy BT Kilostream Private Circuit which is currently being phased out and MMX can provide a number of solutions depending on the scenario faced.
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