Houston — Tait Radio Communications, a global leader in providing radio solutions, has completed a radio network installation for a large electrical utility in North America’s biggest state.

Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) selected Tait to migrate them from a wideband proprietary system to an open standard fully-expandable trunked radio network capable of meeting the FCC narrowbanding requirements.

Tait North America President Steve Cragg says, “Tait worked closely with Golden Valley to provide a solution that will ensure reliable coverage across operations while offering a cost-effective and future-proof investment for the long term. By investing in a system based on open standards, Golden Valley is able to purchase from multiple manufacturers over time to reduce to the long-term costs of the network, while at the same time meeting the approaching narrowbanding mandates.”

The narrowbanding mandates issued by the FCC requires private land mobile radio users operating in frequencies between 412-512MHz to move to 12.5 kHz narrowband voice channels by 2013.

Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA), in Alaska, operates and maintains 35 substations and over 3000 miles of transmission and distribution lines. The Association’s network is interconnected with all electrical utilities in the Alaska Railbelt, which extends from Homer to Fairbanks.

The Tait solution featured a TaitNet MPT radio system, which incorporated nine four-channel sites which utilize the 450–470 MHz UHF frequency band.

As part of the contract, Tait programmed a combination of 228 mobile and portable radios, provided 10 days of on-site training, three days of on-site system integration and nine days of remote system integration support to assist in fine-tuning the system.

About Tait Radio Communications
Tait Radio Communications is a global leader in designing and delivering innovative, world-class radio communications solutions for a variety of industries, including public safety, utilities and urban transport providers. Now entering its fifth decade, the company has single-mindedly pursued the vision of its founder, Sir Angus Tait. He knew that people count, experience matters and integrity is paramount.

In over 150 countries and supported by an extensive network of global facilities, thousands of customers benefit from the Tait way of working: commitment to listen, courage to act and integrity to deliver what’s promised.