Utility Communication Networks and Services

Mehrdad MESBAH is a senior telecom expert in charge of innovation and technical strategies in Utilities Communications for GE Energy Connections in Paris, France. He has been involved for over thirty years in telecom network design and implementation, network transformation plans, telecom architectures and technologies for numerous power utilities across the world. He has contributed to CIGRE D2 Study Committee on different aspects of operational telecoms in electrical power utilities for over a decade. In particular, he has been in charge of international working groups on operational telecom service provisioning and delivery, on utility telecom operation & maintenance and on protection relay communications. At present he leads the CIGRE D2 Advisory Group on telecommunications. Mehrdad Mesbah graduated in electronic engineering from Southampton University, UK in 1982 and in telecom engineering from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications (Telecom Paristech), Paris, France in 1984. Mehrdad Mesbah has authored many technical papers and received the CIGRE technical award for Telecommunications and Information Systems in 2008.    Cigré Study Committee D2 covers the specification, design, engineering, performance, operation, maintenance, economic and management aspects of the Information and the Telecommunication systems in the EPI both for operational and business activities, as well as the different devices, media and networks to support all that services: speech, data, video, internet, specialised signalling for teleprotection, SCADA, EMS, DSM. It also includes the monitoring of the emerging technologies in these sectors to evaluate their possible impact on the EPI, the analysis of the effect of multiple Regulators: eg Power, Telecommunications, Competition Authorities, etc in both the telecommunication and information sectors, and the provision of technical support for international standardisation activities.

Operational Applications and Their Communication Requirements.- Provisioning of Utility-Grade Communication Services.- Delivery of Communication Services in the Utility Environment.- Deploying Reliable and Secure Network Infrastructures.- Maintaining Network Operation in Normal and Disaster Situations.