BT joins battle for lucrative smart metering contracts

Dave Bailey, Computing, Monday 19 July 2010 at 17:47:00

Telecoms giant partners with Arqiva, the firm currently switching UK from
analogue to digital TV

BT has partnered with communications services firm
Arqiva, a
company heavily involved in the switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasts,
and BAE-owned information management specialists
Detica, to
provide a dedicated long-range radio communications solution for the
government?s smart metering initiative.

The group will offer a dedicated network specifically for the smart metering
programme, using Arqiva?s radio spectrum and network infrastructure.

BT's remit is to provide expertise in delivering complex IT and comms
projects, while Detica will provide robust, secure information and
infrastructure security services.

Other partner support will come from smart meter and smart grid specialist
Sensus
which is providing its FlexNet fixed network utility meter reading system.

The group argues that a dedicated radio spectrum at 400MHz would have
advantages over the GPRS-based radio spectrum used by mobile operators.

This is backed up by recent
research
from analyst Ovum which stated that GPRS has some serious limitations, not
least the fact that as the majority of UK meters are in cellars or part-buried,
they may have difficulty connecting to a GPRS network.

The multibillion-pound government smart meter initiative plans to install
smart meters in 28 million residential premises and small businesses by 2020.

The initiative aims to reduce Britain's energy costs and lower carbon dioxide
emissions by 2.6 million tonnes per year.

Government guidelines will be published in the near future, according to a
Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesperson. These guidelines will give
further details on the UK's smart meter approach for monitoring power usage.

The partners say they will review these before formally launching their
proposal in September.

Technology market research firm ABI Research recently estimated that the
market value of smart grids would top $45bn (�30bn) by 2015.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2266698/bt-joins-battle-lucrative-smart