Wednesday, March 21, 2012

N.J. solar panels on utility poles to use AT&T | Green Tech - CNET News

The most interesting aspect of this deployment gets the least attention. The RF units attached to the panels form a Zigbee wireless mesh network which allows each unit  to communicate with each other and other wireless devices in the immediate vicinity (like smart meters. For example) and then that local network of devices communicates upward to a carrier cell network via what is called M2M (machine to machine) protocol which is a slow-speed, inexpensive data network. By the time the deployment is done, the utility has become an advanced  muni network operator by stealth.

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20011178-54.html

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