Google wants to be your Internet

Tue Jan 23 16:48:04 UTC 2007

On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, Daniel Golding wrote:
> One interesting point - they plan to use Broadband over Power Line (BPL) 
> technology to do this. Meter monitoring is the killer app for BPL, which can 
> then also be used for home broadband, Meter reading is one of the top costs 
> and trickiest problems for utilities.

Why is IP required, and even if you used IP for transport why must the 
meter identification be based on an IP address?  If meters only report 
information, they don't need a unique transport address and could put
the meter identifier in the application data.

Even if the intent is to include additional controls, e.g. cycle air 
conditioners during peak periods, you still don't need to use IP or
unique IP transport addresses.

Just because you have the hammer called IP, doesn't mean you must use
it on everything.