Season 2 Episode #1 | It’s All About Telecommunications

The Energy Exchange: An EnerNex Podcast

On this first episode of The Energy Exchange Season 2, EnerNex Vice President Ron Chebra interviews Joy Ditto, President and CEO of the Utilities Technology Council (UTC), to discuss the importance and dependence the energy industry has on reliable, scalable and secure telecommunications for virtually every operational aspect of a utility. With the transitions taking place and a rapidly changing landscape of options, how is a utility able to do both short-term decision-making and deal with mitigation of operations previously dependent on legacy services, while still maintaining the highest level of availability and cyber protection? How does the telecom service roadmap, driven by consumer demand for higher bandwidth services and more streaming services, impact the plans that utilities must rely on for day-to-day operations? In addition, Joy shares the actions UTC is taking to raise the industry concerns regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s plans to change the rules for a critical spectrum band utilities and other critical-infrastructure industries use for mission-critical communications. As Joy describes, this plan, if approved as proposed, will negatively impact critical operations for electric, gas and water utilities.