Regional wireless provider to support parent company, target enterprises and local governments
Regional wireless telecom provider SouthernLINC is set to offer what it’s calling “mission critical” LTE services to parent company Southern Company and entities in Southern Company’s service area.
SouthernLINC said the service would take advantage of the LTE-Advanced network it’s currently constructing across its footprint in the southeast, with the first offering to launch in mid-2016 using fixed data services covering Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Ala.; and Atlanta. The company is targeting the service toward enterprise and local government needs in the area.
The mission critical aspects of the service are set to include encryption from the user’s device, back to the SouthernLINC towers and into the network’s core data centers. The company said it also plans to bolster emergency backup power capabilities at “key” cell sites using hydrogen fuel cell technology, and adding main power and core data center redundancy “to increase the reliability of the new network.”
Ericsson and Cisco Systems are working on the initial deployment including radio access network and evolved packet cores from the former and multiprotocol label switching equipment from the latter. Both companies had been tapped by SouthernLINC in its initial LTE plans announced in 2013.
The enhanced service offering is scheduled for further expansion into Montgomery, Ala., and across Georgia Power’s service territory in 2017, and across all of Southern Company’s service territories in 2018.
SouthernLINC said it is also continuing to invest in its legacy iDEN network, including more than $1 million set to be spent this year on enhancing coverage. The legacy network, which includes the iDEN technology’s robust push-to-talk service, continues to support Southern Company operations, first responders and area businesses.
As with many regional operators, SouthernLINC’s move to LTE included some tough spectrum decisions. The carrier controls less than 10 megahertz of spectrum across portions of Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi. Its use of iDEN was ideal for this challenge as it could deploy network channels in less than 1 megahertz of spectrum. The LTE standard provides for nearly the same small channels slices down to 1.4 megahertz per channel.
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