RSSA new white paper from TCCA said new technologies are not yet suitable for mission-critical supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) applications, such as smart grid management, river level monitoring, oil and gas applications or civil defense warnings. This is primarily due to the lack of in-built resilience and the use of unlicensed spectrum.
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New communications bearers including 4G, narrowband internet of things (NB IoT) and future 5G systems, and low-power wide-area technologies based on license-exempt spectrum such as LoRa and Sigfox, are expected to support the vast number of anticipated IoT devices. The white paper from TCCA’s SCADA working group, led by Nick Smye of Mason Advisory, compares and contrasts the new bearers, concluding that none is yet suitable for mission-critical SCADA applications.
The TCCA group recommended that SCADA users looking to move to these new communication bearers adopt a wait-and-see approach. The group will continue to monitor the situation, and wireless bearers such as TETRA and point-to-multipoint VHF and UHF systems will continue to serve mission-critical SCADA users well, the report said.
The white paper is here.
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