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Requiring a new communications solution to support and consolidate an AMI upgrade with their SCADA control, Navopache Electric Cooperative engaged Mimomax to supply a high capacity network in locations without a microwave backbone in their New Mexico and Arizona service area.

 

One of the key priorities for Navopache Electric was to be able to prioritize serial traffic over Ethernet to ensure the availability of the SCADA network.  “We had a situation in the past when a firmware upgrade was sent to several downstream devices over the Ethernet, causing the serial traffic to stop and consequently disabling our SCADA network.  We’ve done tests with the Mimomax radios where we have bombarded the Ethernet ports with traffic and have never seen even the smallest hiccup in the serial transmissions,” said Jeremy Hellman, Communication Electronics Technician at Navopache Electric Cooperative.

In addition to deploying a network which could manage both AMI backhaul and SCADA communications simultaneously, the solution provided by Mimomax required detailed coverage design to ensure Navopache Electric’s frequencies did not interfere with the adjacent spectrum owned by Salt River Project.  “We have leading in-house expertise in network engineering and coverage design to mitigate both cross boundary and self-interference.  Combining this detailed design and testing with our radio’s internal duplexers and sophisticated filtering and we can maximize the performance of the network as a whole,” said Paul Reid, General Manager, North America at Mimomax.

Given the challenges of mountainous terrain and tree cover, having a vendor who could work closely with the engineers and technicians at Navopache Electric Cooperative was a key priority.  Throughout this project, every member of the Mimomax team has been vastly knowledgeable about the products and always eager to answer any questions or help solve individual issues.  The result is that they have ensured that Navopache Electric is getting exactly what we need out of their radios,” said Hellman.