The US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) has awarded Alcatel USA Marketing a US$2.74M contract for the replacement of the Wyoming area office microwave communications system.
The system is the primary communications medium for the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system that operates fourteen power plants and associated facilities in USBR’s Great Plains Region in Wyoming and Montana, US. The system also carries voice and data communications to many of these remote power facilities that do not have access to commercial voice and data communications systems.
The existing microwave communications system was placed in operation over 20 years ago and is in need of a system-wide replacement to avoid failure of this critical resource and the SCADA system it supports. In addition, installation of the new system will satisfy a mandatory requirement for discontinued federal government use of the 2GHz microwave frequency range to accommodate non-federal use of this frequency.
This contract will be awarded through the use of direct funding provided by USBR’s power customers.