Another trade show down! Thank you to everyone who visited our booth or spoke with us at the UTC 2025 Telecom & Technology Conference last week in Long Beach, California.

Though it was a short drive for most of our team, we know that many of our industry friends are located much farther away. If you could not attend, you can read our recap of the conference:

On the exhibition side, one of our most-discussed solutions was our JumboSwitch® TC3846-2 for extending C37.94 across Ethernet/IP in protection relay applications, as well as the TC3847-3, designed to transport serial data over Ethernet/IP networks for IEC 101/104 SCADA applications and which supports Mirrored Bits®. In part due to the waning demand for the technical skills to support and maintain aging SONET networks, some of these conversations also focused on SONET replacement with MPLS-TP or IP-MPLS.

For these applications, the JumboSwitch is a versatile solution that is easy to configure, install, and maintain. TC Communications also now incorporates regular Qualys® cybersecurity scans of JumboSwitch networks for customers with larger support contracts. After getting a firsthand look, quite a few visitors commented favorably that the JumboSwitch is not a modified SONET box, but rather a clean-sheet design of a multi-service Ethernet platform. Many showed interest in our 10G mission-critical, industrial JumboSwitch as well for its built-in edge interface compatibility.

On the conference side, our managers and lead engineers attended several educational panels and summits led by industry guest speakers covering topics like “The Benefits of Broadband for the Digital Utility” and “IEEE 1588 Time Synchronization for Power Grid Automation.” One of the most interesting panels they attended was titled “The Future of Virtualization in Substations,” led by senior engineers from Salt River Project (SRP), a utility cooperative based in Arizona.

The panel, which discussed the move towards software-defined control systems in place of hardware-based protection and automation systems used in the utilities sector, surveyed SRP’s PAC (Protection, Automation, Control) assets—of which some of the relays are more than 60 years old—concluding that existing device longevity may have to exceed manufacturer’s expectations as replacement efforts fall behind.

This year, we observed an increase in the number of LAN/WAN topics and Ethernet/IP-related topics like IEEE 1588 PTP, SNMP, NERC CIP, and packet transition, suggesting a trend towards more robust, integrated, and secure infrastructure within the utilities industry and in the telecommunications sector at large. Based on this and our conversations with fellow attendees, we expect to see more TDM over IP user interface opportunities arise in the future, owing to the growing popularity of transitioning away from SONET.

Overall, we consider this a successful trade show and appreciate the educational opportunity UTC provides. We enjoyed meeting new people, and we value our interactions with returning customers—whom we also consider friends—because these experiences help us to continually improve and maintain our solutions. We look forward to attending more UTC conferences in the future.