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Turku, Finland. (June 9, 2006)
- Viola Systems, a leader in industrial-grade wireless M2M connectivity
solutions, today proudly announced a customer success story that
is a rewarding result of a long-term and efficient collaboration
between Viola and Finnish Road Administration.
Finnish Road Administration is responsible for
Finland’s public road network. Finnra’s mission is to
provide smooth, safe and environmentally friendly road connections.
To carry out its mission, Finnra needs real-time information on
road and weather conditions, traffic delays and obstacles etc.
A nation-wide network of intelligent devices – built, operated
and maintained by Finnra – supplies the required real-time
information. The network, comprising 350 road weather stations,
300 weather cameras and 350 traffic monitoring stations, is scattered
over nine administrative regions.
What is a road weather station?
A road weather station is an automated weather station
that in addition to measuring generic weather information collects
important weather related data directly from road surface. In Finland
road and weather conditions, especially during the winter time,
often change abruptly and without a warning.
Heavy snow fall can cover main roads quickly and previously safe
roads become dangerously icy in the blink of an eye. In these situations
swift actions are required and scarce road maintenance resources
must be managed and utilized effectively.
It is the up to date data from the road weather stations together
with live video feed and still images from weather cameras that
allow experts prepare reliable road weather forecasts and coordinate
road maintenance activities.
Analog phone
lines are expensive
Any road weather station
needs two things to function, namely electricity and telecommunications
connection. Traditionally, analog telephone line has been used.
The wiring costs for the subscriber line, however, can be very expensive.
The amount of data sent in each transmission from a road weather
station is very small, approximately between 400 and 500 characters,
whilst the call frequency is high; every 15 minutes in the winter
time.
“High call frequency coupled with the fact that some of the
calls are long-distance leads to quite large phone bills,”
explains Kimmo Toivonen, a renowned expert in a
Finnra team that has a nation-wide responsibility over road weather
stations and weather cameras.
“With the cost of only one analog phone line we get six always-on
GPRS based wireless connections,” comments Jouko Kantonen,
Information System Specialist at Finnra. ”When connection
frequency is high and transferred amount of data relatively low,
the cost saving compared to ADSL vary within the range from 20%
to 50%,” adds Kantonen.
Industrial-grade
”In 2003 we at Finnra saw GPRS as a potential new
technology that could bring us significant savings in our high telecommunications
costs,” Finnra’s Toivonen explains. Instead of number
of calls, total calling time and location, GPRS pricing
is mainly based on the amount of data transferred.
Finnra tested a set of products available on the market then. Not
a single product met their requirements fully. “We chose Viola’s
Arctic GPRS Gateway as this product was clearly designed for harsh
and demanding operating environments such as road sides.
Flexibility and expertise
Furthermore, Viola had the required expertise and they
showed high flexibility and speed in converting our specific customer
requirements into product features,” Finnra’s Toivonen
adds.
From traffic measurement …
Finnra also uses Arctic GPRS Gateways to gather data from
traffic measurement stations. Statistics is gathered and motorists
are informed on the existing traffic conditions along the main roads,
especially during holidays. Every 10 minutes about 50kB and once
a day a larger 300kB file is sent over GPRS network.
“In the beginning we had some problems related to the handling
of a so called XON/XOFF serial protocol. Now the combined reliability
of Viola’s product and the GPRS networks we use approaches
100%,” states Finnra’s Toivonen.
To weather cameras
For weather camera connectivity, broadband ADSL is the
preferred choice. In many cases, however, the subscriber line can
be extremely expensive. Viola’s Arctic GPRS Router is highly
reliable and cost-effective weather camera solution if still images
are enough.
Reliability, reliability, reliability
In Northern Finland, for example, a distance to a Viola’s
Arctic can be between 200 and 300km. Given this long distances,
sending a support person to fix a problem in an Arctic unit would
be costly, wouldn’t it?
”Unparalelled field reliability is the greatest
distinctive factor that sets Viola’s products apart from the
competition,” Finnra’s Toivonen ends with a smile.
The related case study including a network
diagram and product images are available at
http://www.violasystems.com/press
About Finnish Road Administration
Finnish Road Administration is responsible for Finland’s public
road network. Their mission is to provide smooth, safe and environmentally
friendly road connections.
About Viola M2M Solution™
Unlike many competitors who sell boxes, Viola delivers a total secure
end-to-end connectivity solution that seamlessly integrates remote
devices and sites to centralized management systems such as SCADA
or HP OpenView. No changes to existing systems are needed. Viola
M2M Solution™ is an install-and-forget-it, hassle-free approach.
In addition, Viola M2M Solution™ is operator-independent;
it allows customers to implement two-way data communications in
a similar manner all around the world.
About Viola Systems
Viola is specialized in advanced, industrial-grade wireless M2M
(machine-to-machine) connectivity solutions that seamlessly link
remote devices and sites together. Reliable remote access to device
information leads to increased productivity and enables new maintenance
business. Viola’s solutions are used in a wide variety of
applications from substations and distribution transformers in the
electricity networks to base stations in the telecommunications
networks to the transfer of video feed from remote surveillance
cameras. Viola’s solutions are sold through a global network
of sales partners. Viola’s customers include ABB, RFI –
a division of the Italian State Railways, Vattenfall, Freescale
Semiconductor, EBV Elektronik, Digita, and the Finnish Road Administration.
Viola’s headquarters are located in Turku, Finland. For more
information, please visit www.violasystems.com.
Editor contacts:
Viola Systems Ltd. / World Wide Contact
Mr. Jyrki Penttonen
Chief Executive Officer
Tel. +358 (0) 40 570 5775
E-mail: jyrki.penttonen@violasystems.com
Finnish Road Administration
Mr. Kimmo Toivonen
Technical Expert / Road Weather Stations
Tel. +358 (0) 400 556 859
E-mail: kimmo.toivonen@tiehallinto.fi
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