AT&T
Pipeline: How is AT&T embracing smart grid?
Ed Davalos, Director of Product Management for Utility/Smart Grid solutions, AT&T Business Solutions:
AT&T is using wireless technology to help modernize the nation’s electric grid. Our efforts in the smart grid space are focused on using M2M (machine-to-machine) technology to streamline business processes and provide real-time monitoring of energy assets. Through relationships with several industry-leading Smart Grid device providers and Advanced Meter providers, we’re enabling the reading of millions of electric meters today.
AT&T, for instance, offers a smart grid application that provides outage alerts, giving utility companies a reliable means to locate and isolate problems on electricity delivery lines. We also enhance customers’ smart grids with sensors that serve as alternatives to manual inspection of equipment that controls the voltage supplied to consumers.
P: How does AT&T enable smart grid?
ED: The key to fully tapping the promise of the smart grid in the electric utility industry is highly secure and reliable communications. One company that knows a great deal about providing such communication services is AT&T, offering utilities a trusted provider to manage the backbone networks that will make the smart grid a reality. AT&T’s robust M2M capabilities, combined with our experience in deploying smart grid devices on our wireless network and our rate plans designed specifically for smart grid devices, makes our smart grid offer highly competitive.
P: What does the future of smart grid look like?
ED: The future will continue as in the past with more devices being automated on wireless networks. When smart grids first emerged as a way to monitor energy use and reduce consumption, the focus was almost exclusively on smart metering. Today, utilities are beginning to move beyond the meter and look at a whole new set of applications that will help transform the electric energy industry.
We see integrated, smart grid solutions – rather than just standalone smart meters – as the future of this technology. As more and more utility providers adopt smart grids, I believe that we’ll see continued development of innovative applications and devices to support efficient energy use.
At the same time, as smart grids progress, we’ll see an increasing amount of data to transmit and manage. The management, processing and storage requirements will create opportunities for AT&T to assist energy companies in meeting these goals. To this end, all of AT&T’s traditional products and services – highly secure communications over wireless and wired networks, data storage, hosting and network management – are ready to help meet this demand for secure communications and efficient data management.
