APX Net’s customer is one of the world’s leading integrated electricity and gas providers. This Fortune 100 multinational energy company is based overseas and operates in three dozen countries, generating energy, selling gas and distributing electricity across a network spanning millions of kilometers. And, its portfolio of power stations is highly diversified, running on hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, solar, thermoelectric and other renewable sources of power. Nearly half of the energy generated by this company is produced with zero carbon dioxide emissions, making it one of the leading producers of clean energy.
Challenge
The energy industry global powerhouse was in the process of building multiple new wind farms in remote areas of the U.S. It needed high-bandwidth connectivity to monitor gear remotely and collect data analytics crucial to operating safely, sustainably and efficiently. There was just one problem: network providers could not reach the remote locations and refused to pull fiber to them.
Situation
The energy company was contracted to build the wind farms on behalf of multiple electric utilities and municipalities. High-bandwidth connectivity needed to be in place before they could hand them off.
However, all sites were many miles away from the nearest fiber, and the energy company could not entice big brand carriers to bid on the project. Without connectivity, the energy company was at risk of missing its contractual obligations.
“We’ve been involved with similar scenarios many times,” said Jeff Wood, president of sales at APX Net. “You can’t just load addresses into a quoting tool, or email them to AT&T, Verizon and other network providers, and expect results. We proactively engage carrier executives and engineer solutions they can buy into.”
“We’ve been involved with similar scenarios many times. You can’t just load addresses into a quoting tool, or email them to AT&T, Verizon and other network providers, and expect results. We proactively engage carrier executives and engineer solutions they can buy into,” said Jeff Wood, President of Sales at APX Net.
Solution
Because fiber builds were up to 10 miles long, several carriers initially said there wasn’t enough return on investment to pull fiber for only the one customer at the end of the line. Undaunted, Wood was able to leverage APX Net’s long-standing relationships to escalate the projects to higher-level carrier executives.
“We used our engineering expertise to build a profitable model and highlighted examples of other business opportunities they could explore after the build,” explained Wood. “Once the wind farms were operational, we argued that growth would follow and create opportunities to serve additional customers in the area, deploy cell towers and more.”
After several presentations and lengthy negotiation, APX Net convinced the carriers to commit to the projects and complete the fiber builds.
As the carrier negotiations were concluding, another challenge emerged: The utility company had an arduous contract procurement process that resulted in protracted contract negotiations. APX Net worked quickly to meet the company’s legal requirements and accounting needs, and even secured financing to speed deployment of the construction.
“Any other carrier would have said, ‘This is our standard contract, sign it or we walk away,” said Wood. And, as for the request to finance construction for a foreign entity? Forget about it.”
“Any other carrier would have said, ‘This is our standard contract, sign it or we walk away. And, as for the request to finance construction for a foreign entity? Forget about it,” said Wood.
Once the contracts were in place, APX Net oversaw the builds to each site and installed 100Mbps symmetrical Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) on Type 1 carrier circuits.
APX Net always deploys Type I DIA circuits because they involve a single carrier, are more reliable and faster to install. With Type II circuits, two carriers are in the mix with a cross-connection at a network-to-network interface (NNI), creating three points of failure and generally resulting in more latency, packet drop and jitter.
Results
APX Net delivered fiber optics with DIA to all locations, enabling the company to turn up its wind farms and hand them off to their clients on schedule. APX Net also was able to reengineer a solution that significantly reduced the quoted cost of one of the builds.
Stakeholders at the company were so pleased with the results that they tasked APX Net with exploring two dozen more projects.
“The builds for this customer were complex,” said Wood. “But because of our extensive relationships and nearly two decades of installation management experience, we were able to secure carrier commitments, expedite the installs and deliver high-bandwidth solutions when other providers walked away from the project.”
“The builds for this customer were complex. But because of our extensive relationships and nearly two decades of installation management experience, we were able to secure carrier commitments, expedite the installs and deliver high-bandwidth solutions when other providers walked away from the project,” said Wood.