ctceo
Premium
join:2001-04-26
South Bend, IN
clubs: | AMR is not always automatic
We have AMR installed at the place where I live, and yet in the winter for some asinine reason the gas co. does "estimated" reads, and they give you hell and asses a fee when you do a USER read. |
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John Galt
Forward, March
Premium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
 ·CenturyLink
| said by ctceo  :We have AMR installed at the place where I live, and yet in the winter for some asinine reason the gas co. does "estimated" reads, and they give you hell and asses a fee when you do a USER read. The reason is because these systems do not always work "as advertised".
I have been to many buildings that have the hardware installed, but the meter readers still make the rounds.
That is why the BPL would work for the utilities...it uses the existing infrastructure and does not rely on radio signals.
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A is A |
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ctceo
Premium
join:2001-04-26
South Bend, IN
clubs:
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1 edit | reply to ctceo
I totally agree with BPL. But I'm not holdin' my breath our for the AMR services to work. Hell, Out local "Mishawaka Utilities" doesn't even accept ANY form of electronic payment, Not even Check by phone. Withe them you have these options for paying your Electric/Water/Sewage Bill:
Cash
Money Order (Of varying types)
Handwritten Checks (i.e. Personal, Business, and so on...)
THAT'S IT. |
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rf_engineer
join:2003-08-04
USA
| reply to John Galt
said by John Galt :said by ctceo :We have AMR installed at the place where I live, and yet in the winter for some asinine reason the gas co. does "estimated" reads, and they give you hell and asses a fee when you do a USER read. The reason is because these systems do not always work "as advertised". I have been to many buildings that have the hardware installed, but the meter readers still make the rounds. That is why the BPL would work for the utilities...it uses the existing infrastructure and does not rely on radio signals. There's plenty of AMR systems that use PLC which is the low bandwidth non-interferring predecessor to BPL. I've had PLC based AMR for years at my house and nearly every meter I've seen in the past several years here in Eastern PA is a PLC based AMR meter.
BPL does rely on radio frequency signals, it's just they are riding on a powerline. PLC uses existing infrastructure much more than BPL. BPL needs repeaters and transformer bridges all over the place. PLC doesn't need transformer bridges or nearly the number of repeaters since it's low frequency and can actually travel somewhat well on the line since it's within frequencies that power line construction can actually carry. BPL takes the PLC concept over the limits and tries to compensate for an insufficient physical medium with digital modulation techniques, oodles of repeaters, and modern marketing techniques. |
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