Communications and Electricity – “The British Are Coming!”

The Essentials, Fourth Edition

In the first edition of this blog, I noted that “the electric sector underpins every other essential industry sector, and it also relies on many of them. I…think of the overlaps like the Olympic rings – all interlinked, with some overlapping more than others.”

For the next several editions, I’ll continue to focus on each critical infrastructure sector in relation to the electric sector because electricity – which began to be deployed as a service close to 150 years ago – has enabled the progress, convenience and abundance that are hallmarks of modern life. Thereafter, I’ll get into the overlapping policy issues in more detail.

In this edition, I’ll discuss the evolution of the communications sector, which I’ll generally refer to in this context as the “telecom” sector so as not to confuse it with public relations or media relations. Telecommunications is defined as “the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication.”

As you may expect if you’ve read my previous blog, now is when I’ll delve into history a bit. Before machines were invented to help deliver news, information, and intelligence, people did it -- they talked to each other, then walked or ran to deliver messages over longer distances. While unverified, the legend of the Greek messenger Philippides (or Pheidippides), who ran the approximately 26.2 miles from the city of Marathon to Athens to ensure Greek leadership knew of its win against the Persians in the Battle of Marathon, is perhaps the most famous example of a person transporting vital information quickly. Philippides supposedly died from the exertion – a truly heroic effort if true!

Strategically placed fires/smoke signals or drums were used to relay emergency messages or for navigation. But as writing evolved from “proto-writing” (pictures and some symbols) to writing derived from a specific language to convey specific words and ideas, much more detailed information could be conveyed. Scholars believe that four distinct areas of the world created writing at slightly different times, with the oldest being the Sumerians and Egyptians in Mesopotamia approximately 5,500 years ago. Papyrus was invented by the Egyptians about 500 years before that. These inventions loosely coincided with the domestication of horses, camels, and donkeys approximately 6,000 years ago, as discussed in the third edition of this blog.

At this point, some ancient societies could convey detailed written information overland via horse, camel or donkey and also by sea. Other developments, such as the first alphabet in 1,500 B.C., and the invention of paper in 107 A.D., happened in the 5,000 years or so since these major breakthroughs occurred in the ancient world, but like with other essential infrastructures I’ve discussed, much more rapid progress has been made in the last few centuries.

And this is where things get interesting, at least for a geek like me! The evolution of modern telecommunications systems and electricity could not be more inextricably linked. As someone who advocated for the electric sector for 22 years, I can honestly say that that linkage was not as clear to me as it should have been until I went to work for the Utilities Technology Council. It was there that I delved further into those linkages, dating back to the 1800s.

Before going into those developments and in honor of our nation’s birthday just this week, I wanted to emphasize how important communications are in wartime – Paul Revere’s famous ride to warn the revolutionaries that the British were coming might have been one of the key tipping points of modern history. Just a century or so later, that information could have been conveyed by telegraph – not quite as exciting, but it gives you a sense of how quickly things began to change…

According to Wikipedia:

Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs, that were devised to communicate text messages quicker than physical transportation.?Electrical telegraphy can be considered to be the first example of electrical engineering.

Essentially, signals could be sent via electrical wires to then move needles that would convey text – the original text messages! The wires were attached to poles and those wires and poles were in many cases the same ones used to build out the electric distribution grids that came into being in the 1880s.

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson invented the telephone and in 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Edison then focused on developing the light bulb and central station power plants, all of which culminated in the 1880s. The next big development in telecommunications didn’t come until Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless communications (the Marconi wireless) in 1901.

Deploying wires across oceans and remote mountain ranges was infeasible at the time (and is still very hard now) – the ability to communicate wirelessly enabled modern sea travel and search and rescue missions, as well as underpinning the cell phone and smartphone technologies to come. Wireless technology relies on the portion of naturally occurring electromagnetic spectrum known as radio-spectrum or microwave spectrum. Wireless technology still relies on electricity and webs or “backbones” of wires to function, but use in telecommunications differentiates it from electricity. While, theoretically, electricity can be transmitted wirelessly, the effectiveness and capability of such transmission over distances has not been demonstrated to date. Electricity can be stored in a battery, with large-scale battery storage improving daily, but that battery must be charged using wires.

In conversations with policy makers, the media, and even friends and family, it has become clear that most people don’t understand this difference. It’s a fundamental distinction between the two industries. The overlap between these two essential infrastructure sectors continues, however, despite this divergence. Modern telecommunications cannot operate without electricity and electricity cannot operate without telecommunications.

The use of telecommunications in electricity began at the beginning. The infrastructure was shared – electric lines were installed below telegraph lines on poles already in the ground. (Eventually, electrical safety dictated that electric lines should be on the top of the poles, but the infrastructure is shared to this day.) Electric industry workers must be in constant communication in order to keep the lights on, and they use telecom systems customized just for a particular utility in some cases and in other cases they rely on a telecommunications provider. Electric utilities still use both wired and wireless telecom technology to communicate amongst themselves as well as to gain visibility into what is happening on their electric grids.

As digital telecom technology became commercially viable beginning in the 1980s, electric utilities embraced digital relays (a type of protection device that prevents grids from overheating and damaging equipment, causing sustained power outages), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), which enables remote monitoring of electric grids, and, eventually, other sensor technology that enables the level of granular response needed for variable demand such as EV charging. Such technology is enabled by fiber wires (replacing analog copper) and wireless broadband that moves huge chunks of information rather than just voice or text data.

It became clear in the 2000s that this digital technology has a downside – it can be hacked remotely. Hence, both sectors have put a huge emphasis on cybersecurity in recent years. Which leads to the overlaps. Similar to water and transportation, these two sectors have overlapping challenges. From a regulatory perspective, they are not treated the same, however. The telecom sector is not rate-regulated while the electric sector is. With that in mind, here are the overlaps that I’ve come up with (which may sound familiar!):

-Aging infrastructure, and pushback from customers who are often reluctant to fund the capital investments needed to upgrade, especially given current inflationary trends.

-Shared infrastructure. The two sectors have long disagreed on pole attachment rates and terms. With wireless “small cell” attachments, the industries in some areas have found paths to agreement.

-Siting and permitting. The industries face some similar challenges on this, although the electric sector’s power plants add an additional layer over and above poles, wires, and cell towers.

-Workforce challenges and the knowledge drain that has resulted from retirements in recent years.

-Supply chain constraints that impact every aspect of infrastructure deployment and maintenance.

-How to best use technology to create efficiencies, extend the life of infrastructure, and minimize expenses.

-How is reliability measured in each industry? The use of radio spectrum and microwave, controlled by the Federal Communications Commission, but also needed for electric and other critical infrastructure, is a pain point.

-How to manage the cybersecurity risk that comes with those technology deployments.

-What about the physical security of the shared infrastructure?

-Given the workforce challenges, how to hire skilled workers who can understand both technology and the infrastructure itself.

-Which industry is in charge of reliability of their own infrastructure and who is paying?

-How to ensure that wireless telecommunications technology is reliable when deploying drones, autonomous vehicles, etc.?

-How will the two sectors deploy AI – what are the overlaps?

These industries that grew up together remind me of siblings – they like to compete and point fingers at times, but they share common roots and can speak the same language to address these challenges.