Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Smart meters: an IT disaster waiting to happen?

Smart meters: an IT disaster waiting to happen?

By Graeme Burton10 Jan 2014smart-meter-danger
Everything has to be prefixed with the word “smart” these days – smart phones, smart cities, smart meters – when really what is meant by the word is that something is not necessarily better, or smarter, but just connected.
Often, the word is also used as spin to deflect attention from the fact that what has been decided is anything other than smart, and nowhere is that more true than in the impending smart meter rollout across the UK.
Telecoms veteran Nick Hunn, the director of WiFore Consulting, describes the system cooked up between the utilities and metering industries as “fiendishly complicated”. He warns: “Too many cooks have ratcheted up the technical complexity to the point where it is no longer fit for purpose. As a result, it’s lining up to be the next major government IT disaster.”
Illusory savings
Minister of state for energy and climate change, Charles Hendry, has said that even though the rollout will cost an estimated £11.3bn – all coming out of consumers’ four-figure energy bills – the technology will help them to achieve some £18bn in savings, albeit over the next 20 years.
But these purported savings do not add up, says Hunn. The major savings attributable around the world to smart metering so far have come in countries, such as India, where up to 30 per cent of power output is stolen somewhere along the line, he says. Smart metering enables electricity companies in such countries to accurately pinpoint exactly where their power is going missing and to take remedial action.
The savings to be made by households in the UK able to pinpoint more accurately when and where they are wasting electricity are therefore largely illusory – people already know that they should change their light bulbs from halogen to energy savers and LEDs, and that they should turn off televisions, computers and other devices they are not using in order to save money.
Besides, the big energy consumers are non-negotiable, such as refrigerators, while the scope for running many items of equipment at off-peak hours are minimal.
In other words, consumers will never recoup the £11.3bn costs as the savings simply aren’t there to be made, or the small savings that could be generated could equally easily be made using much cheaper and simpler technology.
Take, for example, the “in-home displays” (IHDs) that will connect wirelessly to smart meters to provide a read-out of power consumption, anywhere in the home, says Hunn. In the age of the Wi-Fi-enabled tablet computer and smartphone, such a device is an unnecessary (£450m) extra expense.
Nor will they be accurate. Instead of enabling users to log-in directly into their account on their utility provider’s billing system to see how their bill is totting up in near-real-time, they connect only to the smart meter, which will not be able to reflect all the billing information. 
This, though, is the architecture drawn up by utilities and metering companies, and approved by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). 

Market makers
The reason, says Hunn, is that for smart metering to provide truly near-real-time billing and usage data would require utilities to drastically overhaul their own billing systems. Based largely on old mainframe technology, and often cobbled together following multiple acquisitions, mergers, demergers and divestments, they are unable to take minute-by-minute data feeds from smart meters – let alone provide minute-by-minute access to accounts by consumers.
Utilities and their metering suppliers, with whom they enjoy close, long-term relationships, have therefore designed a smart metering system to suit themselves and their current infrastructure, he believes, for a variety of reasons.
First and foremost, with the cost of smart meters being met by consumers, it is in the utilities’ interest to put as much of the cost of the rollout into the meter, and hence pass it on to consumers, rather than select an architecture in which they will have to bear more of the cost.
Utilities told DECC that it would cost between £1m and £100m to upgrade or install new billing systems that would be capable of handling genuinely smart metering.
Second, he argues, the traditional meter makers are ill-equipped to comprehend and absorb the technology that smart meters require, such as wireless communications.
“Most meter manufacturers are metal bashers by background. They have had communications technology thrust upon them. That’s where, to a large degree, they have been mugged by companies that can’t find a market for their technologies, which don’t necessarily work too well,” says Hunn.

To all governments of the world: Stop exposing the population to LTE (4G) technology until proven harmless

To all governments of the world: Stop exposing the population to LTE (4G) technology until proven harmless

This petition is awaiting approval by the Avaaz Community
To all governments of the world: Stop exposing the population to LTE (4G) technology until proven harmless
1,000
179
179 signers. Let's reach 1,000

Why this is important

LTE exposure affects the brain neural activity in both the closer brain region and the remote region, including the left hemisphere of the brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24012322
LTE uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDM) for downlink which enables a high peak data rates achieved in high spectrum bandwidth and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) refers to the use of multiple antennas at transmitter and receiver side. Until now there is only 2x2 of MIMO in use. What will be the effect on our brain functions when 10x10 MIMO will be in use?
This technology has never been tested in relation to our health.

Video of Wireless Protesters Disrupting Tom Wheeler’s Speech

Video of Wireless Protesters Disrupting Tom Wheeler’s Speech

Your browser is not able to display this multimedia content. 
If you would like to watch the censored version of Tom’s Mountain View speech you canwatch it on YouTube.  (sanitized so all disturbing public comment regarding cancer and wireless is safely removed- you may wish to leave a comment)

What do you mean you won’t forward this information?

What do you mean you won’t forward this information?


On Saturday, March 23rd, I was peacefully handing out literature with my daughter for this website to parents in waiting cars and on foot on the sidewalk at Acacia Elementary School-recently rated the number one elementary school in Orange County by the O.C. Register. THIS IS GROUND ZERO FOR THE DISTRICT WIDE ROLL OUT OF WIRELESS CLASSROOMS IN THE FSD.  The information was well received by all except for one parent who I respectfully thanked for his honesty.  When all of the parents had left, I entered the school grounds and approached a familiar group that was curiously watching me that consisted of the principal, several of my children’s teachers, and a non-school district employee who happens to be the foundation president.  I walked up to them and politely handed them a reprint on the blog stories.  Before I handed them the flyer, I stated that I would like to formally present each of you with this information.  I handed it to each of them and they willingly accepted it.  The principal then looked at the information with what appeared to be astonishment and handed it back to me.  She told me that I cannot hand out this information on school property.  The principal then ordered her employees and the one non-employee to return the information to me, which they all did, except for one teacher.  Were they under any obligation to return the material to me?  The foundation president not being an employee certainly was not and the teachers who, clearly all knew who I was, were not really either.  It was a matter of personal choice.  I was simply formally putting school personnel on notice that there is a possible danger on campus that they and the students are all being exposed to.  I then remarked that I will go back to the sidewalk with my daughter, and we did.
Subsequently, I emailed this information to the principal and politely asked her to forward this information to her staff.  After several days,  I asked her  if she forwarded this information to her staff and she said that she did not.  Was the principal within her rights on Saturday?  Was I?  Legally it could be pretty dicey.  However, one could easily argue that in the context of how they were approached as well as how the  event unfolded,  it could go both ways.  I was not passing out obscene material.  I have seen far more questionable material come home with my children like repeated advertisements to a local  bar, and the freaky book catalogue that the school peddles for fundraising.  I digress.  The principal knows who I am and I believe has known about this blog and this information for some time as she was one my first points of contact with regards to this issue.  The foundation president clearly knows who I am as she lives next door to me.  Also, I announced this information at the most recent Board of Trustees meeting on March 12.  By the way, with the exception of ONE elected representative,  since the board  meeting  and the 3-25-13 mass emailing to EVERY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE in the entire district, not one employee from all 20 campuses in the entire district has reached out to me at all.  No questions, no comments, no responses like “thank you for your email”,  no “we will look into this”, nothing, nada, zip.  By the way, every one of those teachers present at that little huddle has had, or continues to have direct contact with my children at this school.
I personally like technology as long as the benefit is not eclipsed by the risks.  Hardwired devices are really the only safe alternative and that is all we want to make evidently clear to all involved.  Mastery of the  technology by our children can be equally accomplished both safely and effectively with hard wiring.  Sounds simple enough doesn’t it?
So what are all these people at the district afraid of?  Is this information dangerous?  I believe that it is.  I believe that this information represents a perspective that the industry and the administrators NEVER told you about and sure looks like they don’t want you to know about.  It gets in the way of what the industry, with the help of local school administrators,  have planned for YOUR CHILDREN-turning them into lifetime customers at a very young age.  These corporations have been dangling carrots in front of the administrators for years with goodies and strings attached.  I wish these devices had strings instead of antennae.  Perhaps, if you knew about the possible dangers, you would say no and thwart the industry’s insidious marketing strategy which aims to place these high frequency microwave transmitters squarely in every school age child’s lap in the entire country- in direct proximity to their sensitive, developing reproductive areas.  No Joe, scientists say it is safe you say?  Guess what?  There are just as many scientists that say that it is not.  See all the prior posts and links on this site.  So why then, when they are your kids, at a school paid for with your tax  money, staffed by people paid for with your tax money, is there not FULL DISCLOSURE of the potential dangers of this technology?  What is with the silent treatment?  They tell you when they spray the Monsanto “Roundup” on the grass.  Why is that?  Did your tech night handouts mention any risks associated with these wireless laptops or tablets in your kids laps for 6-8 hours a day?  Why didn’t  cigarettes have warning labels for decades?  Great questions. This technologically intrusive blind leap is problematic on many fronts.  Quite a Saturday morning, to say the least, and one rife with unteachable lessons from a school district where “learning for a lifetime” is ironically embossed on all the district’s vehicles.
Maybe the pledge of allegiance recited every morning needs to have a more in depth study undertaken by all certificated personnel.  In the meantime, we will simply go back to the sidewalk with our side of the story that you all have a right to know.  In addition, we will continue to make it explicitly clear that we will not supply our children as the test subjects for, what I believe, is about to become the largest radiation experiment on children in human history.  We also hope after you get your hands on this forbidden information, that you won’t either.
- See more at: http://thefullertoninformer.com/what-do-you-mean-you-wont-forward-this-information/#sthash.scBYJqWV.dpuf