Mission Critical Wireless Upgrade

Things are flowing a little more smoothly at Brascan Power in Quebec. Brascan Power Services Inc. is a leading North American power producer with over 100 power generating plants in North America. 

Glentel / Time MCI designed and installed a complete mobile radio system that enables communication between Brascan’s Quebec hydro stations at Masson, The Cedars, and High Falls. Serge Labrie of Brascan is responsible for Automation and Controls at the company, and oversaw the project implementation with Glentel / Time MCI. Labrie explains the communications challenges that Brascan faced prior to Time MCI’s involvement, saying, “Our existing equipment was obsolete and was experiencing frequent failures and overall degraded performance.” The original system design, installed in the 1970s, predated in-building coverage. Users at each damn site – in two-storey underground buildings – had to go outside to use the system. This poor coverage hindered communication between Masson and High Falls power stations, and precluded any coverage extension to other dam sites.

As Labrie explains, this situation was no longer acceptable. “High voltage switching operations require good communication between operators on different sites,” he says. Charles Lawrence, Technical Sales Engineer at Glentel / Time MCI, explains further, saying, “For vegetation management, since workers are doing their jobs close to live lines at 130 kV, communication between plant operators is mission critical to employee safety and overall efficiency.

But thanks to a newly installed wireless solution, that breakdown is no longer a concern. “We designed a wireless system with a link antenna, and full 100 watt repeaters for Brascan,” says Lawrence. The new system allows users at each station to be anywhere in the building, and still be reachable by radio call. Their mobile radios also serve as pagers, making them accessible even when out in the field. Glentel / Time MCI was selected as the ideal vendor to develop and install the solution, based on their thorough analysis of Brascan’s needs. The proposed solution included computer simulated coverage maps which predicts the coverage of the proposed system. Lawrence explains, saying, “Customers like the fact that we are willing to make projections and stand by them. We find we can be extremely accurate with our coverage prediction model, which we always verify when the solution is implemented. In fact, in Brascan’s case, the system capabilities exceeded our projections.”

Throughout the implementation, Labrie was pleased with Glentel / Time MCI’s competence and commitment. Lawrence explains how this sometimes means getting resourceful in order to keep the project on track. “In any project like this, your timeline is subject to Industry Canada’s approval of the frequencies. In order to avoid delay, we initially installed a simplex system at Brascan until the frequencies became available,” says Lawrence. “When they did, we then converted the base stations to operate in full duplex as designed.” In addition, the new system renders Brascan compliant with Canada’s channel spacing efficiency standard. In 2005, Industry Canada went to a narrowband compliance where the 12.5 kHz frequency channel replaces the 25 kHz, allowing more capacity for spectrum and channels to be created. All new Glentel / Time MCI equipment is compliant to the new standards.

With the new system successfully up and running, Labrie reflects on the benefits of Glentel / Time MCI’s solution, saying, “The installed system offers improved coverage and reliability. And the users now trust their communications system. No question, we have been well served by the capable team at Glentel / Time MCI.”