Smart grid coming to rural parts of United States

"In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama said that in America we have 'an aging infrastructure badly in need of repair' and these investments help to address our country's infrastructure challenges," said Padalino, according to FierceSmartGrid. "Upgrading rural infrastructure sets the stage for economic development, because access to reliable, affordable electricity is essential to rural job creation."

Bringing economic growth to rural areas
With FTTH and smart grid both gaining prominence in rural areas, the need for specialty network systems is becoming apparent. In the case of FTTH, fiber to Ethernet media converters are vital to making the optical infrastructure work well with Ethernet systems used in homes. For smart grid, terminal servers are needed to ensure serial-specific utility solutions can interact with Ethernet network technologies.

Perle offers a range of cost effective serial-to-Ethernet converters to help meet NERC-CIP compliance for the protection of critical cyberassets in substations. The IOLAN SDS HV/LDC Terminal Server is designed to meet harsh environments associated with Power Substations with attributes such as support for substation AC and DC voltage ranges, extended operating temperatures and meeting emission, immunity and safety approvals associated with substation IT equipment.