Smarter Utility

In the quest to develop the smarter utility, the average phone subscriber is projected to change over the next several years. In fact, according to recent industry predictions, as many as one billion phone subscribers will not be individuals or businesses. Instead, these subscribers will actually be machines.

The smarter utility must rely on accurate communications between its network and individual users. To accomplish this, it isn’t conducive to efficiency or accurate information if the utility relied on customers to provide information. Instead, that information must be captured through other means.

This recent ITPro article highlighted the growth of machine to machine (M2M) connections, especially in the drive toward the smarter utility. As consumers and businesses are latching onto 3G and 4G networks to drive their voice and data communications, older GSM networks are expected to serve the growing M2M connections necessary to facilitate the smarter utility.

The estimate of one billion phone subscribers was provided by Nokia (News - Alert) Siemens Networks, and arrives just as 4G networks are being rolled out across Europe, Asia and the Americas. High-speed mobile networks, WiMAX and LTE will get a boost in freed up radio capacity as the U.K’s digital TV switchover nears completion, set for 2012.

Even with this growth in use of phone lines by M2M connections, the volumes of data created are still relatively small. Even with the growth of the smarter utility, the typical M2M connection will still only generate roughly 1MB of data per month, well within the capacity requirements for older GSM networks. For its part, GSM still offers wider network coverage, especially when compared with 3G and 4G networks.

A wide range of devices and applications are using M2M technology as equipment and machinery need to be able to communicate with a network or back office computer system to capture and share pertinent information. The smarter utility would use this platform for smart power metering. Other applications include health care equipment and vehicle monitoring for transport fleets.

Even with small volumes of data, Nokia Siemens Networks anticipates the growth of M2M to be rapid, especially as companies such as AT&T (News - Alert) are using M2M to mobilize data. This is expected to put some pressure on GSM networks. Nokia Siemens Networks has developed new software it claims will reduce the signaling load by as much as 70 percent.

AT&T and other providers are likely to continue to push the growth in M2M by providing the necessary network capacity and supporting the growth of the smarter utility. As this continues, the demand for software solutions to reduce the load is likely to grow.