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Preparing for 5G: How One of the Nation’s Largest Electric Utilities Provides Software Automation to Support 5G Carriers

Southern Company chose Varasset to automate, standardize, and optimize their joint use and 5G attachment process across all electric operating companies.

Vancouver, WA, 3/3/2020

About Varasset

Based in Vancouver, WA, Varasset is a work and asset management software solution for the power and communications industries. Varasset adapts to the unique business needs of each organization, quickly delivering high return on investment. Varasset offers flexible automation for enterprise and targeted work order and asset management challenges. Varasset solves challenges where traditional large enterprise asset management (EAM) vendors often have difficulty.

About Southern Company

A Varasset customer since 2008, Southern Company is a large electric and gas company based in Atlanta, GA. Southern Company’s electrical network spans Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, serving over 4,000,000 customers. Each state has a separate opco (electric operating company) that maintains a large degree of autonomy.

Challenges with 5G

With the onset of 5G, utilities are preparing for the influx of communication companies wishing to attach 5G and Smart City devices on their poles, streetlights and other assets. The FCC estimates service providers will invest $275 billion over the coming decade on next generation wireless infrastructure deployments. 5G deployment will drive a lot of work in the public right of way, causing utilities to either hire many people, fall behind on work, or automate their processes. Approving an attachment permit can be slow and consume valuable man-hours. Even simple tasks like confirming that the parties are talking about the same asset can be challenging when they are not looking at the same data.

5G deployment presents extensive challenges for service providers. 5G providers must conform to the unique processes, systems and business practices of each organization they partner with. It is difficult for providers to balance their projects with different organizations, complying with different engineering standards while simultaneously racing to implement their 5G network before their competition.

Solution

Southern Company addressed these problems with Varasset. They implemented their first cross opco database for joint use and 5G colocation. Southern Company’s Varasset self-service portal saves time and money by allowing communication providers to view Southern Company assets (streetlights, transmission facilities, communication towers or land) on a map. From there they can request a permit to attach to an asset. Permit and construction updates are sent automatically through email notifications.

Varasset is configured to each Southern Company opco’s work practices and policies, and it interfaces with other internal software. Role-based security allows each opco to provide appropriate access to their data. This creates an intuitive, all-in-one system to streamline the colocation and joint use process from permitting and deployment to ongoing maintenance.

Learn how Varasset’s targeted work and asset management solutions can help you manage 5G and other challenges. Visit www.varasset.com for more information.

 

CONTACT:

Contact Person: Dave Boring

Company Name: Varasset

Phone Number: 360.882.4002, ext. 207

Email Address: dave.boring@varasset.com

Website URL: www.varasset.com