News and Product Updates

Saudi Arabia Water Transmission System Chooses JumboSwitch® for Communications Backbone

TC Communications, a leading designer and manufacturer specializing in industrial fiber optic networking products, announced today that its JumboSwitch® has been chosen as the main communications network backbone and Industrial Ethernet Switch for the Phase II project of the Shuqaig Water Transmission System in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The contract calls for the engineering, provisioning and commissioning of more than 110 JumboSwitches for 6 pipeline systems to provide Ethernet connectivity for servers, printers, workstations, displays, PLCs or RTUs, VoIP, radio base-stations and office WAN traffic.

Owned by the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, the Shuqaiq Water Transmission System will supply drinking water from the Shuqaiq desalination plant on Saudi Arabia's south west coast to cities in the western region. The pipeline system is scheduled to start operating in early 2010.

The JumboSwitch® was chosen by Siemens, the Phase II subcontractor for electrical power distribution, control automation systems and fiber-optic cable communication networks between the pumping stations. The Phase II project includes eight pumping stations that will transport water over more than 900 kilometers of pipelines at a rate of 400,000 cubic meters per day.

The JumboSwitch® is the first Industrial Grade Gigabit Ethernet platform that meets the converging world of data, voice and video. It is ideal for SCADA and Control networks and is currently the only Industrial Switch that provides hot-swappable universal interface card slots for modular interfaces to convert Voice, T1/E1 or Primary ISDN circuits, and serial data, with IP PBX, near Stratum II clock precision and demanding teleprotection speeds.

"The JumboSwitch®’s architecture, features and capabilities are a perfect fit for the Shuqaiq Water Transmission Project," said Victor Liang, V.P. of Sales & Marketing for TC Communications. "With the migration from TDM to Ethernet technology accelerating, the JumboSwitch meets or exceeds virtually every requirement the customer and consultants desired for this project, including rigorous industrial grade requirements, critical real time performance for the control data traffic, solid bandwidth guaranty and ubiquitous IP environments."