arisk
join:2001-08-08
London, ON | Smart meters knock out WISP Fortunately for most participants here, internet service is fairly fast, stable, reliable and available.
For some, that isn't the case and here is how you can suddenly have a bad day.
I recently became aware of an issue involving the implementation of hydro smart meters.
Note I'm referring to "implementation" NOT "existence of" and the inevitable debate surrounding that.
I'm aware of an issue a small wireless ISP is dealing with.
This is just to help awareness. I know affected customers and have no affiliation with the ISP directly.
For several years the WISP has provided wireless internet to a mostly rural population, which has dialup as the only other option.
I won't mention their name, as that isn't my place to do so. They have enough problems right now and as I'm now aware this issue isn't unique to them.
A week or more ago a substantial number of their customers lost connectivity.
The issue was traced to newly installed Hydro One radio equipment used to upload smart meter data.
The Hydro equipment operates in the 900 MHz band, the same as the ISP uses.
The following website explains it more thoroughly, but in brief, Smart Meters use frequency hopping across the entire band (with questionable legality) wiping out any service already operating there.
»www.ve3ncq.ca/wordpress/?page_id=10
There appears to have been no testing to determine the affect this would have on already operating systems or they simply don't care and steam roll over them.
It's frustrating seeing a company step up and address the internet needs of a rural community, only to be tromped on by something like this.
I am aware the ISP is currently frantically replacing equipment and as of yet still have customers without service.
It will be interesting to know who suffers the financial loss on this. |
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 MacGyverDon't Waste Your EnergyPremium,ExMod 2003-05
join:2001-10-14
Canada
kudos:1
 ·TekSavvy DSL
| WISP knocks out Smart meters? I am strongly suspecting (but not yet confirmed) that in my area, the exact opposite has happened. A new Xplorenet tower that was announced with much fan fare on December 16 with politicians present, was wildly coincidently at the same time my Smart Meter stopped sending data. My Hydro web portal has no data since December 17, and now Hydro One is sending me overestimated bills with all hours charged at the off-peak rate. Hydro One doesn't have meter readers to manually read the meters anymore, and I can't send in a manual meter reading because I'm not supposed to need to do that anymore. I also got lazy because of my smart meter and stopped reading my own meter, since the online data was way cooler and more accurate. Now I learned my lesson - and this is coming from somebody who deals with energy as a living.
The problem is that everyone wants to use the unlicensed 900 MHz band because it's free. It should have been kept free for public use, not corporations. Our 900MHz walkie talkies, cordless phones, baby monitors, etc. are all e-waste now. Hydro One could have used a dedicated band for this purpose, but hey, we paid for it. This could be a very expensive problem to fix. And we'll pay for that, too. |
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| reply to arisk
Re: Smart meters knock out WISP That's the risk with an unlicensed band, The equipment must accept all interference and must not cause interference with licensed stuff.
Its sucks but that the price to pay. |
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 GuspazGuspazPremium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
kudos:16 | said by Napsterbater:That's the risk with an unlicensed band, The equipment must accept all interference and must not cause interference with licensed stuff.
Its sucks but that the price to pay.
The point is that the hydro company didn't get a license, and they're transmitting at about 67,000% (500mW) what they're allowed to (0.75mW). Allegedly, anyhow.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org |
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| Or rather that the FCC/IC rules of measuring power transmission is based on averages over time instead of a peak value...
So once in a while you'll get a burst of high power interference. While the regulatory rules said it is okay, but doesn't work too well with simpler analog technologies without frequency hopping. The high volume of transmitters at one/per meter that pretty means lots of them are hopping all over the spectrum.
Seems like a big mess too as IC won't do anything. "It is important to note that Industry Canada DOES NOT intervene in any cases of interference amongst unlicenced and licence-exempt users." |
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 twizlarI dont think so.Premium
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON
kudos:3 | reply to arisk
Easiest solution for the wisp is to get a few units that will knock the smart meters offline. Pissed off electrical customers > pissed off wisp customers.
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Broadline Networks Inc. |
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 PaoloMr. Wireless
join:2004-05-29
Canada | if its Hydro One, they use 2.4Ghz for their smart meters, if its London Hydro, they could be using 900. hydro one does not even exist in london? are you sure? it could be london hydro
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Happiness is like peeing your pants... Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its Warmth!! |
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| reply to arisk
With 32000 meters even if there were only 1 receiver in the entire town and each of the meters used up it entire 0.4 sec window by the regulation, it would only need 3.53 hours for all the meters to sequentially send their data. In reality, there would be much smaller clusters of these meters with their receivers so there should be at least an (if not 2) order(s) of magnitude reduction in the traffics.
If they were to (stagger) and to reduce the rate of updates to every 7 days or even once a month and only during the wee hours at night time, they could have reduced a lot of the interferences. It wouldn't be a problem at all. |
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KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | reply to twizlar
said by twizlar:Easiest solution for the wisp is to get a few units that will knock the smart meters offline. Pissed off electrical customers > pissed off wisp customers.
id imagine if one knocked the meters off their data link though the lights would stay on hopefully. Though the power company might get a bit ticked off if a huge swath of meters stopped reporting in.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports |
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PaoloMr. Wireless
join:2004-05-29
Canada | kearnstd, do u know how mesh technology works? if one device goes offline, they hop to the next route bypassing the one that is offline. they have multiple links for redundancy
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Happiness is like peeing your pants... Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its Warmth!! |
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 dillyhammerBack to TeksavvyPremium,MVM
join:2010-01-09
Hamilton, ON
kudos:9
 ·Cogeco Cable
·TekSavvy DSL
·Caneris
 ·voip.ms
| reply to Ott_Cable
said by Ott_Cable :Seems like a big mess too as IC won't do anything. "It is important to note that Industry Canada DOES NOT intervene in any cases of interference amongst unlicenced and licence-exempt users."
They won't even intervene in the case of a clear regulatory violation.
The meters have already been deemed illegal by the ministry. They were deemed so even before they were installed. Yet Hydro One installed them anyway, and the Minister came out, publicly announced they violated the W&M Act, and gave them a pass for 2 years.
There are so many levels of douchebaggery involved in the energy sector. It's unreal. Puts the telecom sector to shame really.
Mike
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Cogeco - The New UBB Devil -»[Burloak] Usage Based Billing Nightmare
Make The Switch - »openmedia.ca/switch |
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| reply to arisk
Why do you weirdos call it hydro...
that's such a weird name lol.
Water, say it with me, WATER> |
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| said by CTMustang:Why do you weirdos call it hydro...
that's such a weird name lol.
Water, say it with me, WATER>
Actually, us weirdos call it Hydro because it is Hydro-Electric power we're talking about. When the electric companies were formed, the primary source of electrical generation was through diversion of water through turbines.
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MNSi Internet - »www.mnsi.net |
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| reply to dillyhammer
The whole "green energy" thing is also bogus. Sure I can pay for whatever amount of green energy in my mix. Wonder what happens to the surplus energy from non-green generation plant, they sell that off on the grid as a commodity. It is not like they as a for profit business would leave them off and not make money.
The states get the cheaper power from that coal-fire plants in Canada polluting ourselves and we pay for the expensive green stuff. |
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Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to CTMustang
said by CTMustang:Why do you weirdos call it hydro...
that's such a weird name lol.
Water, say it with me, WATER>
I agree. As a Canuckistanian, even I cringe when my fellow comrades use that term. "Hydro pole"? DERP. |
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PaoloMr. Wireless
join:2004-05-29
Canada | My friend conrad (not black) hit a Hydro pole with his car. the only thing that survived was the hydro pole, hardly a dent, but my friends car a write off.
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Happiness is like peeing your pants... Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its Warmth!! |
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brad
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON | reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz:The point is that the hydro company didn't get a license, and they're transmitting at about 67,000% (500mW) what they're allowed to (0.75mW). Allegedly, anyhow.
Interesting. I've had 400 mW APs. |
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| reply to Ott_Cable
said by Ott_Cable :Wonder what happens to the surplus energy from non-green generation plant, they sell that off on the grid as a commodity. It is not like they as a for profit business would leave them off and not make money. If the demand is less than the power plant's output, they DO throttle output to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption just like hydro dams reduce water flow to avoid draining reservoirs faster than necessary.
said by Ott_Cable :The states get the cheaper power from that coal-fire plants in Canada polluting ourselves and we pay for the expensive green stuff. Hydro-electric power has one of the lowest cost per watt of all energy sources, probably the cheapest renewable source of predictable on-demand power. Wind turbines come in even cheaper except their performance depends heavily on weather... so most of our "expensive green stuff" is far from being expensive. While hydro dams may be more expensive initially, they require no fuel and require much less maintenance than any fuel-burning plants, which is why it is the preferred energy source wherever the necessary geographic features are available..
Hydro-electric power is so cheap that some power companies go so far as to build reservoirs to supplement their fuel-burning plants through peak hours and then use their off-peak capacity to operate the dam's turbines in reverse to pump water back into the reservoir for the next peak hours instead of building enough coal/diesel/nuclear plants to meet peak demand. |
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| »205.254.135.7/electricity/annual/ U.S. Energy Information "Electric Power Annual 2010"
6.3. U.S. Electricity Imports from and Electricity Exports to Canada and Mexico (pdf) »205.254.135.7/electricity/annual···e6.3.pdf
Canada ...........2010................2009
Imports from .. 43,763,091 .. 51,108,502 (Megawatthours)
Exports to ..... 18,481,678 .. 17,490,264
Canada is a net exporter of electrical power to the states.
Certain power generations such as hydro/natural gas/coal-fire can throttle their power during non-peak times. The fact is that we are exporting power, so we are keeping more generators on to meet the demand than it would have been without exporting.
No problem with the big hydro projects. Once they are paid off, they are cheap and plenty full and keep everyone happy.
»www.uoguelph.ca/~whulet/OGN/Vol1···till.htm
Where Ontario Gets Its Electrical Power (2000 figures)
Nuclear 37%
Coal and Oil 29%
Water Power 26%
Natural Gas 7%
Wind, Solar, Biomass 1%
We are not as green in Ontario. The old stats from 2000 is a bit more than 1/3 power by Coal/Oil/Natural gas. I am guessing the new numbers might get a boost in the last part.
The "green power" refers to the Ontario boondoggle that we have. Because of the new "green power" craze, the newly brought online wind power and smaller scales hydro powers are part of the mix. These does not scale as economically as the much larger scale hydroelectric generation station nor have been paid off, so the per unit power prices are high. |
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dillyhammerBack to TeksavvyPremium,MVM
join:2010-01-09
Hamilton, ON
kudos:9 Reviews:
·Cogeco Cable
·TekSavvy DSL
·Caneris
·voip.ms
| reply to Ott_Cable
said by Ott_Cable :The whole "green energy" thing is also bogus.
Absolutely. I mean, the concept of green energy is awesome. The implementation in Ontario is beyond bogus. Total scam, just like the rest of the Ontario energy sector.
There's a very small inner circle of people making money hand over fist in Ontario. Who those people are, and how they got to the place they're in, really needs to be looked at closely. Forensic like. Whoever does that should start with Mike Harris.
Mike
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Cogeco - The New UBB Devil -»[Burloak] Usage Based Billing Nightmare
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