Overview | Chattanooga, Tennessee – A City In Crisis
In the middle of the 20th century, Chattanooga, Tennessee, was a city in crisis. A former manufacturing hub at the base of the Appalachian mountain range, it was overrun with air pollution and smog due to the heavy industrialization in the city. Chattanoogans were dying from tuberculosis at a rate three times higher than the national average, and, unsurprisingly, the city was dubbed “the dirtiest city in America.”
Something needed to change, and decisions were made to revitalize the city. In 1972 an Air Pollution Control Ordinance was passed, and after investing a quarter of a billion dollars, the city met all federal air pollution standards in 1989. Interestingly, Chattanooga’s aggressive effort to clean up its air quality has now turned it into one of the greenest cities in America.
As the city began deindustrializing and the factories that had provided a livelihood for so many left, the economy took a downward turn. The city then began focusing on providing its citizens with the best services that it could while keeping things affordable. And at the heart of the mission was EPB – the city’s publicly owned power utility.
Challenge | Keeping Costs Down While Improving City-Wide Service
The revitalization effort started with embracing green and eco-friendly living. What was once the “dirtiest city” became one of the greenest in the country as the city began relying heavily on solar power and hydroelectric and created bike and electric car share programs. Interestingly, one of the biggest factors in the revitalization was EPB.
EPB set out to revolutionize the way power was delivered in Chattanooga and was determined to not only provide a resilient power grid with a reliable energy supply but also to do so in a way that kept costs manageable for its residents. And in order to keep costs manageable for residents, it needed to improve its own operating processes and procedures.
By 2008 – less than 40 years after being declared the “dirtiest city in America” Chattanooga had cleaned up its act and EPB had evolved from a power utility to a full-scale communications provider.
Solution | Nokia Fiber Optic Networking Leads to The Creation of “Gig City”
When EPB decided to “deliver more” for the city’s residents, it started by installing a Nokia-powered fiber optic smart grid infrastructure that included smart meters for every customer that would allow the company to create a more resilient power supply across its 600-square-mile service area. Additionally, the introduction of IoT devices provided real-time monitoring and maintenance information, creating a “self-healing” grid.
To do this, EPB deployed a fiber optics network alongside their distribution points powered by Nokia. The Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network manages its energy smart grid, allowing data to flow quickly and securely, pinpointing outages and identifying meter issues while operators plan crew assignments and get better insights into when equipment replacements are needed. Additionally, they’re able to ensure that new equipment added to the grid is able to handle current and future capacity needs.
Results | A Resilient, Reliable Energy Grid, Lightning Fast Internet, and Huge ROI
EPB’s Nokia-powered fiber optic network did exactly what the utility had set out to do. It created a robust, resilient network that powered the city’s smart grid and kept customer costs low by taking advantage of new efficiencies and optimizations.
However, it also provided EPB and the residents of Chattanooga with another benefit – a secondary utility service. Today, EPB is a full-scale communications utility, delivering electricity, internet, television, and telephone services to its customers. With the fiber optic network deployed across its entire service area, EPB realized it could diversify its service offerings to include Fiber to the Home. The network now delivers lightning fast Gigabit connection speeds that are more than 40 times faster than the average US broadband speeds.
In the last five years, businesses with fast internet requirements have begun moving into the city, creating between 2,800 and 5,200 jobs. The city has also enjoyed an $860 million increase in revenue in the first five years that the network was deployed.
About Infinity
With Nokia’s complete portfolio of networking solutions at our fingertips, Infinity Technology Solutions has decades of experience installing, maintaining, and optimizing networks for various industries.
