Working Together for the Betterment of the Communications Industry

Working Together for the Betterment of the Communications Industry

In this week’s episode of Fiber for Breakfast, we were joined by Rusty Williams, President and CEO of Utilities Technology Council (UTC), a 77-year old global trade association that represents electric, gas and water utility companies, as well as large investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities, service providers, engineering companies, and telecom service providers – all trying to work together to advance the critical infrastructure in telecommunications.

Watch the full Fiber for Breakfast episode here.

Williams described that one of their major responsibilities they take on is in the area of training and information dissemination. He said “it’s our responsibility or one of our jobs to try to help get the necessary industry information or technical information to our members. We provide platforms for cooperation or collaboration.” With the makeup of all of those types of companies listed above, he went on to say “that all those things, all those technologies it takes for us to make these utility systems work, that’s what we’re about at UTC.”

How Things Work
UTC is all about providing network resiliency for the utilities that are members of UTC –whether it’s electric, gas, water, or telecommunications. When bad things happen like a weather incident like a hurricane, ice storm or even wildfire, life doesn’t start to get back to normal until those critical services are restored.  Williams mentioned that “if we can provide control networks, operational technology networks that can help monitor, maybe keep outages from happening in the utilities or get them back online more quickly, then we see that as a success.”

Many members of UTC are also members of the Fiber Broadband Association (FBA) and are working together to build out fiber broadband networks. Williams explained that “We have electric company co-ops and other types of companies that are also FBA members so we’re working with them to help make sure they have the information they need to build out those types of networks for the betterment of their communities.”

Challenges
One of the areas that Mr. Williams discussed in today’s episode was that pole attachment issues continues to be a challenge in building out these networks. He went on to say “We’re all working to build out these networks in a secure and safe way, as well as being cyber safe. Utilities have a lot of expectations in terms of providing their services and building them in a way that these bad actors can’t come in and disrupt the services.” Another area he commented on is the challenge on the electric side. Over the last 10 to 20 years in the electric industry, UTC has been projecting a reduction in the electric demand across the US due to things becoming more energy efficient. However, suddenly, over the last five years, that issue has completely flipped, and it’s being driven primarily through the growth of AI driven data centers. So, when you look at the power that’s going to be required from those data centers – it has grown as much as 10 times. Instead of a one, two or three percent power demand reduction a year, we’re now looking at anywhere from five to 18% annual growth and managing that spike in growth will continue to be challenging.

Working Together

Williams wrapped up the segment with a few final thoughts. “Groups like FBA and UTC, we all have our focus areas and a lot of our interests and technology do overlap somewhat. So, if we’re looking to try to help the industry, we’re looking forward to what I like to call the greater good, and not just look at my little silo or my little piece of the pie, then I think that we can all work together.” “And if we remember it’s about our customers, our communities, and keep that mindset, then I think there’s good things out there that will happen.”