**6.3 Comparison of transmission media**

To be able to obtain a global comparison among different transmission media used in power system communications, the above mentioned transmission media are compared based on their provided bandwidth, latency and security. This is shown in Table 1.


Table 1. Transmission Media Comparison (Shahraeini et al., 2010).

It should be noted that the above mentioned transmission media may be used either for WAMS communications or for other communications of the system (e.g. SCADA). But the important concept is that the communication infrastructure of WAMS is the most extensive communication infrastructure in a power system. Other communications (e.g. SCADA and SPMS) may be a part of the communication infrastructure of WAMS. Modern communication systems have the ability of physical integration. This means that different communications (e.g. WAMS, SCADA or SPMS) can use the same transmission media and the same routers. In this environment, communication of different applications (e.g. SCADA and SPMS) can virtually be implemented such that communication limitation of each of them is satisfied.
