The Migration to Cellular White Paper

Ron Zetouni, Star Control’s CTO & Co-Founder, collaborated with Mount Pleasant Waterworks and Verizon Wireless to present a White Paper on The Migration to Cellular.  This lecture took place at the SCEC (South Carolina Environmental Conference).

Click here to view the White Paper

 

In the last few years the trend of migrating the analog conventional wireless networks, used by SCADA systems, to IP based wireless networks has gained momentum. With the high availability and cost effectiveness of the cellular networks, the migration is more relevant than before. For the last 9 years Star Controls has gained an impressive experience in the migration to IP based and cellular networks. The team provided analytics, design and implementation of the migration. Star Controls has implemented large migration projects that includes hundreds of remote sites.

 

While dealing with  Our support includes:

  • In-depth knowledge of different technologies and products, which allow our team to offer different options. Star Controls has a privileged access to vendors’ support.
  • Support the discussions with the cellular services providers, including different network topologies and Network Protocols.
  • Implement advanced SCADA protocol, in order to reduce data usage.
  • Cyber-security aspects
  • Design and implement redundant communications for Mission Critical Sites

 

Although the IP network is perceived as a “plug & play”, it is NOT. So our design and implementation take into consideration different important aspects:

  • Maintainability – improve the user-experience for the O&M team, and provide troubleshooting tools
  • Customer’s self-sufficiency – through knowledge transfer and tools
  • Longevity of the system – the IP based networks allow the upgrade of today’s technology with tomorrow’s without the costly “Rip & Replace” transition, but rather gradual, while keeping the business continuity.

 

In addition, Star Controls embedded the experience it has gained with the IP based networks into its StaRTU software product. The StaRTU now can retrieve from the cellular modem/gateway important information, such as RSSI (Radio Signal Strength Indicator) and Data usage, which allow the SCADA engineer and the O&M personnel to deploy, optimize and troubleshoot the IP based wireless networks in most productive and simple way.

 

If you consider, or just to pre-evaluate, cellular or other IP based wireless networks for your SCADA system, please feel free to contact us (sales@star-controls.com), and one of our experts will assist you.

 

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