ROI is a hot topic these days, which is good. It’s bad business to spend without understanding the gain. Power and central office line protection for your communications system is no different.  So how do you assess the return on the purchase of power protection? Besides the cost savings of reduced services calls, there are other benefits from power protection that can impact your bottom line:

• Maximized performance and increased reliability
• Dramatically reduced service calls and down time
• Dramatically reduced ‘No Trouble Found’ reports
• Significantly increased equipment life
• Peace of mind
• Increased employee productivity
• Higher customer satisfaction

Increased Reliability and System Performance

Only 0.5 percent of power disturbances are caused by power outages. Other power disturbances aren’t as obvious and can be very difficult to identify. Because of this, you may be blaming some performance issues on the equipment when they could be caused by poor power quality, transients received on the telephone company cable, or inter-building cables that extend to off-premise locations. When disturbances interfere with equipment, they can cause an array of service disruptions and trouble reports. When power and line protection issues are resolved by using a power-conditioned solution (low impedance power conditioner or power conditioned sine wave UPS) and secondary T-1, trunk or line protection, your system’s performance and reliability increases dramatically. Here’s what you gain: increased productivity, immediate ROI, and lower operating costs.

Decreased Downtime

Even small amounts of transient energy that enter your system will damage delicate components. Over time, small amounts of transient energy disrupt, degrade and eventually destroy sensitive microprocessors leading to a printed circuit card and can result in complete system failure. Protecting equipment from day-to-day transients allows your system not only to run as it was designed, but also for as long as it was intended. With less equipment failures and fewer service calls, those savings go straight to the bottom line.

Maximum Results

When selecting power protection, be sure that the solution addresses all power and transient issues and that it includes low-impedance isolation transformer technology that eliminates transients at the chip component operating level (0.5 Volts of Common Mode and less than 10 Volts of Normal Mode noise).  In addition, be sure to include Secondary Trunk, T-1 and line protection to create a “total protection” solution for your system. This combination will provide the highest level of protection available and safeguard your system.

So, what frustrations are you currently having with your communications or IT system that could be solved by installing a premium power protection solution?

By Claire Formilan, Marketing Communications Manager, POWERVAR

Working with POWERVAR Corporationin Marketing Communications, Claire Formilan provides key tools for communicating the need for power protection and raising awareness of its benefits. Claire has over 15 years experience in the electronics industry, the last 12 years focusing on power protection.

 “Technical contributions from Tim Maghan, POWERVAR Telecom Sales Manager.” 

About POWERVAR

Headquartered in Waukegan, Illinois, POWERVAR also has international sales and distribution offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. Now including ONEAC products, POWERVAR is strongly positioned to meet the power quality and protection needs of industry leaders, offering premium power protection solutions: transformer-based power conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), communication line protectors, and UPS management and messaging software.

What to look for in a power quality solution for your communication network

A lot goes into your communications network–hours of planning, installation time, expensive equipment. You could have the best equipment on the market. But, without clean, continuous power you will experience interruptions, lock-ups, poor call quality, and even system failure. Power disturbances from outside your building (grid problems, lightning, downed power lines) and within your building (elevators, HVAC, refrigeration units) all contribute to poor quality power to your equipment. To avoid all this, you need power protection. So what do you look for in a power quality solution?

In searching for power protection for your communications equipment, you’re going to need more than a simple surge protection device (SPD), or an off-the-shelf power conditioner. SPDs aren’t designed to filter spikes of several hundred volts and can actually wear out or fail without you knowing it. Off-the-shelf power conditioners, while offering your system a little more protection, won’t offer the level of protection your business needs. Here’s what you want to look for:

1. Reduces all electrical disturbances. In order for power protection to be effective, it must be able to handle the worst possible disturbances and reduce them to levels that are harmless to circuitry in your system.
2. Includes a low-impedance isolation transformer.The low-impedance isolation transformer does two things. First, it provides the peak current requirements of switching power supplies in electronic devices today. Off-the-shelf devices often times need to be oversized to accommodate peak voltages, whereas a power conditioner with a low-impedance isolation transformer does not. An added benefit of proper sizing is efficient energy consumption.  Secondly, noise generated by other equipment can also travel on the shared power lines. The low-impedance isolation transformer prevents this noise from reaching the equipment it protects
3. Provides a single-point reference ground. Because today’s electronics use the ground as a reference to communicate, any noise on the ground greater than ½ a volt will disturb this communication. The results–garbled communications, momentary interruptions, and damage to equipment. It’s crucial to provide a clean, single-point reference ground. So look for a transformer-based power conditioner that safely and legally re-bonds the ground and neutral before sending power to your equipment.
4.  Offers a two to five year warranty and technical support. This will ensure you have a company that stands behind the expectations given about the equipment.

By looking for these basic features in your power protection device, you’ll be providing the solid foundation any system needs to run at its peak performance through any power disturbances.

So, does your power protection device have what it takes to manage and reduce noise?

About Claire Formilan: Working with ONEAC Corporation as the Marketing Communications Manager, Claire Formilan provides key tools for communicating the need for power protection and raising awareness of its benefits. Claire has over 15 years experience in the electronics industry, the last 12 years focusing on power protection.