Telecom &
Communications
The telecommunications industry encompasses everything that keeps the world connected, from cellular communications to all digital and analog systems that form the backbone of infrastructure between businesses and the cloud.
Efficient telecommunications rely on large networks including hubs, cell towers, repeater nodes, radio towers, coaxial boosters, fiber optic repeaters, and more. They depend on DC batteries for continuous availability and must prioritize resilience and visibility across the grid.
Monitoring
Considerations
Hub Centers
UPS Systems
Telecommunications hub centers facilitate mobile and cloud services and are dedicated to meeting high connectivity demands. These centers rely on battery-based uninterrupted power supply (UPS) systems to enhance data integrity, maintain operations, and reduce downtime during power failures.
Regulatory Compliance
Hub centers are beholden to government regulations regarding backup power monitoring to ensure connectivity for emergency services. They may need to track multiple metrics and submit frequent reports. Doing this manually can result in major drains of time, energy, and resources for personnel.
DC Plants
Separate DC Plants
Most cell towers operate on a power supply from DC plants. Having multiple separate plants ensures redundancy, so if one plant is compromised, the others can sustain operations. However, this also adds a layer of complexity that complicates gathering data.
Remote DC Plants
Remote DC plants provide network connectivity in areas that fall outside of the cell tower grid. These plants need to maintain constant availability with minimal onsite supervision, and they often incorporate battery backup systems that can be deployed when primary power sources are down.
Repeaters
DC Power
Telecommunications repeaters serve as autonomous radio stations that play an essential role in receiving and transmitting communications, especially in remote areas. Repeaters utilize DC battery banks for backup power and may operate on Power over Coaxial technology, which involves injecting DC power signals along with data signals to bump voltage on coax cables.
Emergency Radio Towers
DC Battery Banks
Emergency radio towers exist outside of the grid to facilitate communications between public safety agencies. During outages, they draw backup power from DC battery banks. These batteries play a critical role in public safety and must be continuously reliable.
Regulatory Compliance
These towers are also subject to strict government regulations. They need to deliver connectivity to emergency services at all times, regardless of outages, so they must demonstrate reliable back-up power.
Battery Monitoring
In order to deliver connectivity across networks, telecommunications providers rely heavily on battery banks - both for backup and UPS power. However, DC batteries are prone to unexpected failures before or between scheduled maintenance, and even a single failure can jeopardize an entire string.
Without tracking battery performance in real time, technicians may not realize their backup power source has been compromised until it’s too late. For large telecommunications providers with multiple locations and many battery banks, testing each unit manually is not a practical or sustainable solution.
Through Cellwatch, Parameter automates every stage of the battery monitoring process to safeguard power availability. Cellwatch continuously monitors all cells in a string to identify and resolve failures before they compromise the battery system. Cellwatch Battery empowers telecom providers to:
- Track critical units in real time
- Reduce the risks of unexpected outages
- Identify failing cells quickly so they can be repaired or replaced
- Seamlessly manage battery health data from multiple strings and units
- Streamline preemptive maintenance to achieve cost savings, defer replacement, and maximize useful battery life
Parameter’s battery monitoring solutions are tailored for telecom applications, with options specialized for protecting DC strings and automating compliance, as well as consolidating large amounts of data across networks.
Product Lines
For remote DC plants, repeaters, and radio towers, Cellwatch Frontier tests batteries daily to confirm charge and detect failures. The Frontier platform is specifically designed to help telecommunications companies achieve increased availability, fewer site visits, reduced maintenance and replacement costs, and enhanced visibility of battery backup systems.
Compliance Enhancement
To help ease workloads associated with regulatory compliance, Cellwatch Frontier includes advanced functionality for testing all relevant battery conditions and automating compliance report generation.
Optimized for DC Applications
To help telecommunications providers prevent unplanned outages, Parameter delivers a tailored platform for remote DC monitoring with the Cellwatch Frontier system. Cellwatch Frontier is designed for continuous monitoring of DC power systems to reduce onsite visits to DC plants, repeaters, radio towers, and other remote locations where manual monitoring is not practical.
Parameter’s Cellwatch Central platform is designed for large organizations with multiple installation sites and complex data analysis needs. As a secure remote monitoring platform that consolidates data from multi-site operations, it can cover entire regions to identify dangers and prevent tower and repeater failures that would lead to outages.
Complex Data Consolidation
By collecting data from multiple sites and consolidating it into a single system, Cellwatch Central enables telecommunications providers to analyze battery performance across over 50,000 jars and manage battery types, installation data, and maintenance events via a unified system
Automated Real-Time UPS Visibility
As an automated solution for UPS strings, Cellwatch Central enhances preemptive maintenance and delivers peace of mind through real-time visibility by tracking units continuously.
Discover Advanced Telecom Monitoring Solutions From Parameter.
Not only can the right monitoring system alert to failures, but it can also enable incident prevention, enhance efficiency, increase cost savings, and deliver peace of mind.
Contact Parameter to discover flexible battery monitoring solutions for telecom infrastructure that check all these boxes.