In June 2023, CGES put into operation a new telephony system based on IP technology and equipment from the manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent. The investment amounts to €250,000.00 excluding VAT, and the supplier is the Consortium Simes Inženjering d.o.o. Podgorica – Telekomunikacije Računari i Servisi d.o.o. Belgrade.
As the electricity transmission system operator, CGES is by its nature spread across the entire territory of Montenegro. Administrative buildings, dispatch centers, data centers, maintenance facilities, warehouses, substations, and similar facilities are located at dozens of sites. Due to this distribution of CGES facilities, in order to create normal working conditions for staff, it was necessary to interconnect all locations through IT systems and provide them with a reliable voice communication system. The implementation of the new IP telephony system has completed CGES’s internal telephony infrastructure, fully achieving the previously stated objective. CGES currently uses nearly 300 telephone extensions across all locations.
A separation between business and operational telephony has been implemented. Business telephony relies on the IT department’s network resources and is used for the company’s day-to-day administrative activities. Operational telephony represents perhaps the most important segment of this system and is used to connect the transmission system operator with substations, CEDIS, EPCG, transmission system operators in neighboring countries, maintenance teams, and all other entities relevant to the management of Montenegro’s power system. For this purpose, a dedicated IP/Ethernet network has been designed and implemented, based on industrial-grade equipment deployed in substations and state-of-the-art solutions in the form of interconnected and redundant dispatcher consoles, providing operators with significantly improved call overview and control. The system also provides the capability to record and store operational telephony calls.
The system features high reliability, as redundancies have been implemented at multiple levels, including separation of the system into two independent geographic locations, multiple communication paths between locations, redundant power supply systems, redundant SIP trunks to the public switched telephone network, and more. Management, monitoring, and configuration of the IP telephony network are performed centrally from the National Dispatch Center in Podgorica, via a dedicated central management system. The system includes a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables CGES staff, in addition to configuration and management, to monitor the system status in real time.
It is important to note that all CGES locations are interconnected through the CGES telecommunications system using SDH/Ethernet, and later the new IP/MPLS transmission system. The new IP telephony system is the result of the dedicated work of the CGES Telecommunications Department staff, who participated in the project from design and implementation to the commissioning of the entire system. The implemented IP telephony solution at CGES is unique in Montenegro and can serve as an example of a successful solution for all similar companies.
