Texas fascinates with its famous hubris, its huge distances, its undeniable vigor, its wealth, and its sense of always being on some kind of cutting-edge.
This gives special impact to the announcement that the Lower Colorado River Authority is purchasing additional 900-megahertz wireless broadband licenses from Anterix, boosting its ability to support future growth in Texas.
Combined with existing licenses at other utilities, this means that Anterix, the Woodland Park, New Jersey-based grid connectivity innovator, has a footprint in 93 percent of Texas counties — a significant development.
For much of the utility industry, Texas is a kind of laboratory where there is leadership, innovation and, sometimes, failure. In 2021, during Winter Storm Uri, Texas was plunged into days of darkness and devastating market failure, resulting in heavy loss of life and astronomical price escalation. Since then, nearly 300 utilities have been hardening their systems, adjusting their energy-only market structure, and preparing for a future in which Texas knows it will face extremes of heat and cold year in and year out.
Utilities across the United States have been watching to see how the Texas grid, ERCOT, has evolved and how the individual utilities are hardening their systems.
Already, Texas leads the nation in wind power as well as in many aspects of energy management, including how it integrates battery storage. It is also emerging as a leader in battery deployment.
LCRA’s expansion of private broadband LTE to upgrade utility communications could signal utilities across the nation to look to enhancing their communications base.
Anterix maintains that with a private broadband network, a utility gets communications interoperability, enhanced cybersecurity, and the ability to manage vast quantities of data as well as simple push-to-talk communications between trucks.
The new LCRA agreement, worth $13.5 million, adds to the $30-million initial license agreement, signed in April 2023.
Stephen Kellicker, LCRA’s executive vice president, enterprise resources, said, “The 900-megahertz private LTE solution plays an important role supporting LCRA’s mission.
“Since LCRA’s relationship with Anterix began, we have continued to identify additional ways to serve Texas using LTE. LCRA’s private broadband network deployment is a significant element to help address our industry’s challenges and help support the people and organizations in our service territory.” Those organizations include 30 electric cooperatives and municipalities, schools and transit authorities.
Anterix President and CEO Scott Lang said, “This follow-on agreement between Anterix and LCRA testifies to the power of the partnerships that the 900-megahertz private network revolution has built across the utility sector.”
“As the first critical infrastructure operator to expand its 900-megahertz wireless broadband network, LCRA welcomes the power of private LTE connectivity to transform its operations and help ensure a resilient energy future for its customers and communities,” Lang said, adding, “This transaction also highlights the growing scale and impact of a 900-megahertz private network supporting the utility sector’s journey towards more reliable and secure energy future.”
LCRA is one of the more interesting and complex utility organizations in Texas or anywhere else. It manages 600 miles of the Texas Colorado River, providing water to more than 1.4 million people. It operates six combined- purpose dams and several fossil fuel-generating stations.
LCRA was created by the Texas Legislature in 1934 and has been a bulwark of creativity down through the years. Now it is adjusting to new realities in weather, population growth and escalating demand.
As data transmission and the need for instant situational awareness have risen, utilities, which once left communications to the telephone company, are increasingly aware of the necessity to control their communications as well as upgrade them, according to many participants at last year’s Utility Broadband Alliance summit. The alliance has increased geometrically over the past four years as the demands of data, security, speed and latency have transformed the communications space for utilities in Texas and elsewhere.
The eyes of the utility world are on Texas and on private broadband LTE networks.
