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Joel Beecher - Communications Technician - National Grid
National Grid needed earlier, clearer visibility into fiber-ring and transport alarms across its communications network. Using three T/Mon LNX master stations with DPS Telecom KDA and NetGuardian alarm remotes, the team improved day-to-day situational awareness and got a head start on troubleshooting.
| Industry | Electric and gas utility |
|---|---|
| Company | National Grid (investor-owned utility) |
| Geography/Coverage | Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island; electricity network on Long Island; natural gas distribution across the Northeastern US |
| Primary Challenge | Turn SNMP and ASCII alarm data (including fiber-ring conditions) into actionable, on-screen visibility without manual databasing delays |
| Solution Deployed | Regional alarm monitoring using three T/Mon LNX master stations integrated with DPS alarm remotes |
| Key Result | Earlier notification and faster local response; fewer surprises when the network control center calls |
| Products Used | T/Mon LNX master stations; KDA alarm remotes; NetGuardian alarm remotes |
National Grid is one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the world and an international electricity and gas company operating in growing markets. As the second largest utility in the US, the company delivers electricity to approximately 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island, and manages the electricity network on Long Island. National Grid is also the largest distributor of natural gas in the Northeastern US, serving approximately 3.5 million customers.
Joel Beecher is a Communications Technician at National Grid and part of a group responsible for protecting service reliability for millions of customers. For this team, communications-network alarm visibility is directly tied to response speed, repair coordination, and avoiding extended outages.
Utility communications networks carry a mix of alarm sources: discrete contacts from field equipment, serial/ASCII alarm messages, and SNMP traps from IP and transport gear. Without efficient alarm processing, important events may not show up on operator screens quickly, or they may require time-consuming manual configuration to become actionable.
Beecher summarized the operational priority clearly:
"The main thing is getting a jump on problems or issues. That's really been beneficial for us."
National Grid also needed better visibility into ring behavior and transport events, where a fault can propagate and present as multiple symptoms. In that environment, it is important for operators to see alarms as they arrive, recognize patterns, and start isolating trouble before it escalates.
National Grid uses a monitoring system that includes three T/Mon LNX master stations, plus KDA and NetGuardian alarm remotes. Beecher noted the long-standing relationship with DPS Telecom and the migration path from older equipment:
"We've been using DPS since KDA's," Beecher said. "We converted from our older RTU's, and we went to the KDA's."
In a typical deployment like this, DPS Telecom alarm remotes collect and normalize alarms from many sources (discrete inputs, analog readings, serial feeds, and SNMP traps) and forward them upstream. T/Mon LNX then consolidates those events into a single, operator-friendly alarm view with filtering, prioritization, and consistent naming - the kind of operational workflow utilities need when coordinating multiple regions and repair teams.
For organizations evaluating similar architectures, DPS Telecom generally recommends pairing intelligent field and site alarm collection (such as NetGuardian RTUs) with centralized alarm management (such as T/Mon LNX) to reduce time-to-awareness and create a repeatable response process. National Grid's deployment reflects that approach using the specific products listed above.
Beecher visited DPS Telecom for Advanced Factory Training, where he learned about several T/Mon LNX features designed to reduce manual alarm databasing work. He highlighted two improvements:
"The biggest feature improvements I've seen are auto-databasing ASCII and auto-databasing SNMP," he said. "For a lot of our alarms, we haven't been able to get them onto the screen. Now we can do that with those functions."
In practice, auto-databasing helps teams get more value out of SNMP and serial/ASCII alarm sources. Instead of requiring an operator to pre-build every alarm point, these functions can capture incoming events and assist with creating the database entries needed to display, route, and acknowledge alarms consistently. For environments with many devices and frequent configuration changes, reducing manual steps can shorten the time between adding a device and gaining usable visibility.
"The auto-databasing SNMP in T/Mon will allow us to see that we've got an issue riding around the ring."
Beecher gave a specific fiber-ring example based on SNMP alarms from a Metropolis DMX:
"From a Metropolis DMX, we already get the basic SNMP alarms like OC-48 Loss of Signal, TBER, AIS conditions or Timing Holdover" he said. "But on the path around the ring itself, there will be other SNMP traps that we see come in. We don't have them set up right now. The auto-databasing SNMP in T/Mon will allow us to see that we've got an issue riding around the ring."
For teams with similar transport gear, this highlights a common challenge: basic alarms may be available, but additional traps can provide earlier indicators and more granular localization. Centralizing those traps in T/Mon LNX helps operators correlate events and respond faster with fewer blind spots.
Most of the time, network monitoring protects against conventional threats such as equipment faults, transport degradation, and power issues. But monitoring can also reveal unexpected physical damage quickly enough to narrow the search area.
Beecher described one incident from early SNMP trap deployments:
"When we first started doing the SNMP traps, we actually got an 'OC-48 loss of signal' alarm," he remembers. "What it turned out to be was that some hunters had shot up the fiber. Because we had monitoring in place, we got a head start and determined that there was an issue. We put an OTDR (Optical Time-Domain Reflectometer) on the fiber and determined how far out the problem was. This helped our people concentrate on a certain 1-2 mile area down from 50 miles. When they found the problem, we were told, 'Yeah, they shot at the cable right there.'"
From an operational standpoint, the key takeaway is the value of immediate alarm notification paired with a clear workflow: detect the event, confirm severity, localize the fault, and dispatch crews with useful context. Systems built around DPS Telecom alarm collection and T/Mon LNX presentation are designed to support that kind of repeatable response.
National Grid benefits from an architecture where Beecher can monitor alarms directly on his local T/Mon LNX, which is then interrogated by a higher-level master. This design supports two important needs at once:
Beecher described how that regional layer reduces delay:
"Because of that extra layer, we get the notification early. A lot of times, when the network control center will call, we'll say 'We're already aware of it and we've got people on the scene.' It's not a surprise."
He added detail on the practical impact:
"Instead of alarms taking an extra step where the NOC center has to wait 10 to 30 minutes and then call the supervisor for that area, we already see it and we're already starting on it," he said.
This is a common reason utilities deploy multi-tier alarm management: a regional master station can provide faster acknowledgement and local context, while upstream masters or enterprise views provide coordination, escalation paths, and reporting.
To get the most out of National Grid's investment in T/Mon LNX plus KDA and NetGuardian remotes, Beecher attended the first annual Advanced Factory Training session at DPS Telecom headquarters.
"The advanced class was very good," he said. "It was a little bit of a refresher class, too. There are more features I never really knew about which will make things easier for us."
With hands-on experience using T/Mon LNX, Beecher found the training especially valuable:
"Now that I've been able to use the LNX for a while, that helps," he said. "There are things that I'm learning and seeing from being here that, in the first class, I never picked up."
For teams rolling out alarm monitoring across many sites, DPS Telecom training can speed adoption by showing practical configuration workflows, alarm database strategies, and best practices for SNMP and serial alarm ingestion - especially when integrating a mix of legacy remotes and newer RTUs.
Many utilities use ring topologies for resiliency. When a segment degrades or breaks, alarms may appear as loss of signal, error rates, AIS, timing issues, or related SNMP traps that indicate the fault and its impact on protection switching.
Even when traps are arriving, operators may not see them as actionable alarms if the monitoring system requires manual databasing or point creation. Features such as T/Mon LNX auto-databasing SNMP can reduce the work needed to bring new traps into the displayed alarm set.
ASCII alarms typically arrive as serial or text-based messages from devices or terminal servers. SNMP alarms arrive as traps/informs over IP. Both can be useful; a centralized system like T/Mon LNX helps normalize these sources into a single workflow.
Regional visibility lets local staff begin investigation and dispatch immediately, while the NOC maintains a consolidated view for escalation and coordination. National Grid described this as a practical way to reduce delays and avoid surprises.
DPS Telecom commonly combines RTUs such as NetGuardian for site and device alarm collection with T/Mon master stations for central alarm management. In this story, National Grid uses T/Mon LNX along with KDA and NetGuardian remotes.
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