Smart Choices: Establishing a Solid Foundation for an Effective, Future-Ready Smart Metering System

With the widespread adoption of IP-based communications, establishing such an infrastructure has become a viable economical proposition. However, the successful deployment of AMI and the associated communications infrastructure requires a detailed understanding of the business requirements, an assessment of key strategic options and a detailed understanding of the implications of these on a communications network which can support, reliably, potentially millions of devices in a Machine to Machine (M2M) application environment. Only by carefully addressing these areas can a power utility be confident that they are implementing a solution with long term capabilities, thereby protecting their communications technology investments.