Trilliant Announces Smart Grid Industry's First Integration of NAN and WAN Tiers

Trilliant Networks, Inc. - 03.16.2010

Trilliant Incorporated, a leader in delivering Smart Grid solutions that enhance energy efficiency, utility operations, and renewable resource integration, today announced the SecureMesh™ Bridge products, which integrate a Wide Area Network (WAN) for distribution and a Neighborhood Area Network (NAN) for metering. This is the Smart Grid industry’s first fully-integrated private WAN/NAN solution and is a result of Trilliant’s strategic acquisition of broadband wireless equipment provider SkyPilot Networks in Q2 2009.

The two new products – the SecureMesh Extender Bridge and the SecureMesh Connector Bridge – both include the long-range, high-capacity backhaul of a wireless WAN mesh network with an integrated advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) collector that aggregates metering communications across a NAN mesh network. The integrated solution provides a dedicated private network without leased cellular costs and extends connectivity to distribution, metering, and consumer applications. In addition, integrated WAN/NAN communications provides support for multi-application partitioning for application security and Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees.

“The scope of Smart Grid network deployments continue to expand as utilities focus on the benefits of leveraging multiple applications across a converged infrastructure,” according to Rob Conant, Senior Vice President Network Products at Trilliant. Realizing these benefits, though, requires an integrated multi-tier network that scales across multiple grid operation tiers.”

“Much of the talk about the future smart grid is about the unified connectivity, service guarantees, and end-to-end security common in today’s converged enterprise networks,” according to Bob Gohn, Senior Analyst with Pike Research. “The kind of integration offered by Trilliant’s solution is enabling these capabilities now.”

Article Continues Below ↓

Application Domain Partitioning

Supporting multiple applications on a converged infrastructure, however, presents distinct security and performance challenges. Certain grid applications like substation video monitoring have quality-of-service (QoS) requirements that need traffic guarantees and all applications require end-to-end security.

Trilliant’s application domain partitioning solves security and QoS challenges by segmenting an integrated multi-tier communications network into multiple virtual network domains to ensure end-to-end security and guarantee traffic for each Smart Grid application.

Application domain partitioning allows utilities to have a single investment in a private network that also gives control of their operations in a way that still provides security on all levels – from distribution to metering to consumer. By applying established networking concepts such as virtual private networking to provide security and segmentation across a common infrastructure, this solution addresses a significant utility industry concern.

About Trilliant Incorporated

Trilliant Incorporated provides hardware, software and service solutions that deliver on the promise of Advanced Metering and Smart Grid to utilities and their customers including improved energy efficiency, grid reliability, lower operating cost, and integration of renewable energy resources. Since its original founding in 1985, Trilliant has been a leading innovator in the delivery and implementation of energy management systems, including advanced utility wireless data collection for residential and commercial customers, demand response, time-of-use billing, and critical peak pricing initiatives. Trilliant currently has more than 200 utility customers including Hydro One, the single-largest Smart Grid implementation in North America.

Trilliant Contact
Media:
Tim Smith
Element Public Relations
tsmith@elementpr.com
+1.415.350.3019