News | RACOM - Part 3

As annually in January, the management met with the sales team to review the previous year and to inform themselves about the expectations for the year ahead. As usual representatives from product management and R&D also attend the meeting to inform the sales team about upcoming news for 2024 and to get feedback from the market.

Sales managers from Europe came to the meeting at the company’s HQ in Nove Mesto n.M., while others were connected online. Our sales managers are spread around the world in different time zones with a shift from -5 to +7 hours compared to our HQ in the Czech Republic. The time for meeting together is therefore significantly limited and for this reason the meeting was held over two days.

The market situation for components and materials started to stabilize in 2023, so we did not have any problems with delivery dates and we were able to deliver our products to our customers according to their requirements. All of the new launched products, the RipEX2e radio modem, the M!DGE3 mobile router and microwave link RAy3 for 80 GHz, established themselves well in the market and quickly found their customers.

We evaluate the year 2023 as a successful one, we managed to increase our sales and profit compared to 2022. We sold more radio modems and cellular routers, with a significant increase in sales of the new generations of RipEX2 and M!DGE3 at the expense of older types. In microwave links sales were slightly lower, mainly due to the postponement of large tenders to 2024 and the later launch of the RAy3-80.

The sales forecast for 2024 presented by our sales team is optimistic and we should achieve approximately 10% higher volumes in all product lines. All estimates are rather conservative, so we believe that similar to last year we will be able to exceed the forecast and continue to grow.

DISTRIBUTECH 2024, Orlando

FEBRUARY 27-29, 2024 | ORLANDO, FLORIDA

The Webinar «Latest Radio and Cellular Routers in SCADA» we delivered on December 5, 2023 was really successful. We finally had almost 300 registrants from 50 countries.

If you were not able to join the live webcast or want to return to it, the full recording is available here.

You can learn there about the latest models of our radio modems and cellular routers RipEX2e and M!DGE3 and how they complement the other members of their product lines.

You will also learn what the current trends in SCADA communication are and what the focus is on. The webinar also covers hybrid networks that combine communication over a private radio channel and a cellular network.

In case you are interested in the questions that were raised during the webinar and the answers to them, you can find them here.

We thank all participants for their participation and questions and look forward to seeing you at our next webinars.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION

Latest Radio and Cellular Routers in SCADA

RAy3 for 80 GHz has achieved a strong market presence, even though it has only been on sale for 6 months. In November, we hosted a webinar «Get to Know RAy3-80 GHz, RACOM’s new 10 Gb/s link», which was very well attended with more than 200 registered participants from 39 countries.

The webinar covered the following main topics:

How the RAy3-80 performs in mass production
Its technical features and capabilities
User experiences from the field
Its comparison with RAy3 for other frequencies

If you were unable to attend the webinar online or would like to return, the full recording is available on the RACOM YouTube channel here.

The questions raised during the webinar and our responses to them can be found here.

If you have any questions, either technical or commercial, please do not hesitate to contact us here or at racom@racom.eu. The competent member of our team will get back to you promptly.

Thank you to all participants for attending and we look forward to seeing you at our next webinars.

WEBINAR REGISTRATION

Get to Know RAy3-80 GHz, RACOM’s new 10 Gb/s link

WISPAPALOOZA 2023, Las Vegas

October 9 – 12, 2023 | LAS VEGAS, USA

Ukraine’s energy companies are doing their best to keep their distribution networks up and running and to provide electricity supplies even as the unprecedented war continues after Russia attacked Ukraine.

We are glad that RACOM can contribute with its products to keep the power distribution networks working and the Ukrainian industry and population have access to electricity as much as possible without interruptions.

RipEX radio modems and M!DGE cellular routers are used in dozens of countries to provide communication for distribution networks control systems. They are used to control reclosers, transfer data from industrial control computers in the field, etc. You can learn more about examples from Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Vietnam, New Zealand, Brazil and other countries in the references on our website.

We have been supplying our radio modems to Ukraine since 2005, mainly to power distribution companies. We have a long-term cooperation with the Ukrainian company ALCOMA LLC, which managed to get a contract for another control system for power distribution company even in war conditions. This time the SCADA system will be deployed in the central part of Ukraine and will include four networks with total of 66 pcs of RipEX radio modems.

We believe that the installation of the equipment will go smoothly and our partner, with the help of our technical support, will put the equipment into operation as soon as possible despite the difficult situation in Ukraine.

Power distribution network in Egypt is being upgraded extensively, including the installation of smart meters. The project, with a total value of approximately EUR 150 million, is being financed by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and is being implemented in three state-owned distribution companies serving more than 10 million connection points:
AEDC – Alexandria Electricity Distribution Company
NCEDC – North Cairo Electricity Distribution Company
NDEDC – North Delta Electricity Distribution Company

Due to the scale of the project, which involves connecting hundreds of thousands of smart meters to the system and upgrading the management of the entire distribution network, the selection of individual devices took almost two years. After a lot of studies and testing, RACOM’s RipEX2 radio modems were selected for data communication on private radio networks.

Together with the general contractors for each area, Siemens and Elsewedy, we designed the radio networks to connect the individual locations and together proposed the communication method of the connected devices and its setup.

Everything had to be tested and approved by representatives of the investor and the end users before sending the equipment to Egypt. We are happy to inform that both FATs (Factory Acceptance Test) with Elsewedy and Siemens were successful.

We were able to conduct the FAT with Elsewedy remotely in February 2023, with representatives from Elsewedy, JICA and NCEDC joining and monitoring everything online.

The second FAT with Siemens took place in August 2023 at RACOM’s headquarters, with representatives from Siemens Egypt, JICA, AEDC and Xceltra, our partner in Egypt, providing on-site installation and servicing. The whole FAT was really comprehensive and took three days. Everything went well and the final report was signed without any comments.

The first 200 pcs of radio modems, some of them in hot-standby version, can therefore be shipped to Egypt during August and September, including antennas and other accessories.

We delivered the first radio modems to Egypt in 2005. We are pleased that our hard work in this market has now paid off and our radio modems are part of such a large and important project.