SAC Wireless, a Nokia Company, launches SAC EDG™ (Edge Delivery Group), a division focusing exclusively on communication network consulting and deployments for public utilities. SAC EDG works with utility customers nationwide as they design, build, deploy, and maintain PLTE networks that can outperform the capabilities of operations tied to a commercial public spectrum network.

“For 25 years, SAC has been a leading provider of wireless infrastructure and private network deployment services, and for the past five years, we’ve leveraged that expertise to serve public utility customers,” said Chris Bondurant, CEO of SAC Wireless. “This team, now branded SAC EDG, anticipates common challenges, such as remote terrain, dense urban clusters, and complex jurisdictional clearances, to deliver projects on time and within budget. From initial strategies, through pilot deployment, and then production deployment, we constantly refine real-time data delivery and security innovations that will benefit utility companies nationwide.”

Wireless communication networks enable utilities to deliver energy services to the communities they serve -- safely, securely, accurately, and efficiently. SAC EDG helps utility customers by managing turnkey, end-to-end services, from initial strategy consultation through testing and deployment.

SAC employs a team of self-perform EDG crews, providing boots on the ground with centrally located warehouses that can be mobilized to serve clients coast to coast.  EDG crews train at SAC’s state-of-the-art utility training center headquartered near Chicago. Team leads and project consultants leverage advanced knowledge of Nokia technology to ensure decisions made today can be scaled as technology advances.

SAC EDG provides the communication platform for utilities to advance specific technological innovations for their operations, including:

Performance (FCP/falling conductor protection and grid modernization)

Efficiency (advanced metering and network consolidation)

Cyber Security (EDG employs a highly specialized team dedicated solely to IT and Cyber Security)

Coverage (dense urban clusters and challenging rural terrain underserved by public networks)

“In Western and Mountain regions, wildfire mitigation is a top priority, that’s where our FCP advances are making mission-critical impacts,” said Randy Robb, AVP Utilities for SAC. “In all regions, where communication networks were added piecemeal as technology was developed over decades – including push-to-talk field crew networks, remote sensors, and video surveillance, and project databases that can be accessed and updated remotely on tablets – network consolidation can align all of these disparate technologies into a single, highly secure, wireless network.”

“Utilities are non-competitive and eager to share best practices with other energy providers,” Bondurant said. “SAC EDG can replicate and customize successful strategies for new markets, to ensure technologies aren’t siloed from the communities that need it most.”