Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E), a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based OGE Energy Corp., signed an agreement with Dobson Fiber to upgrade the resiliency and capacity of the company’s communications network. With the agreement, the two Oklahoma headquartered companies will build approximately 350 miles of new fiber and leverage over 600 miles of Dobson’s existing network to connect key infrastructure.
OGE Energy continues its grid enhancement efforts by increased grid automation, monitoring and operational technologies. The partnership upgrades the OG&E network bandwidth from 150 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps). Moreover, it mitigates the risk of wireless interference as FCC regulations evolve.
Sean Trauschke, Chairman, President and CEO, OGE Energy, said: “This exciting initiative is representative of our overall approach to grid enhancement, which is to find the best means of improvement for the greatest value for our customers. Working with Dobson Fiber enables us to leverage their extensive expertise to future-proof our communications network while saving more than 60% over standard deployment costs.”
Francisco Maella, CEO, Dobson Fiber, said: “One of Dobson’s core strengths is building and maintaining fast and reliable fiber networks. We are thrilled to partner with OG&E to enhance their utility communications network backbone, manage the fiber network and access approximately 350 new miles of fiber in Oklahoma. This agreement furthers Dobson’s commitment to deploying fiber-based networks in all parts of the state, which is consistent with the State of Oklahoma’s initiative as well.”
