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Does IoT Data Need Special Regulation?
dkatana writes: As part of the UK's Smart Meter Implementation Programme, Spain's Telefonica is deploying a M2M solution, using its own proprietary network, to collect and transmit data from 53 million gas and electricity smart meters. The most troubling issue is that the UK government awarded the contract to a private telecom that uses a proprietary network rather than to an independent organization that uses freely available spectrum and open source solutions. Those Smart Meters are supposed to be in operation for more than three decades, and rely on a network that can cease to exist. On top of that, the network, running proprietary protocols, can be hacked, and "will be hacked". Only Telefonica will be able to fix it.
I don't think you can rely on any platform to be around for 30 years, even if it's open source.
Some platforms have lasted that long, but trying to guess which platforms will last and which won't is not the reason to choose open source.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That would be 6.51 cows per square centimeter, here on the European mainland.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
If you want this to last 30 years, closed source is the way to go. Open source projects come and go, with large turnover in developers. They also frequently get forked due to pissing contests between developers. Most open source projects also get abandoned before ever making it to version 1.0, and it's an extremely tiny portion of projects that are updated over five years let alone 30. Also, for every great example of an open source project of high quality (e.g., Linux, Libreoffice, Firefox, X.org), there's probably a hundred that are subpar to closed source counterparts. A closed source project developed by a business is far more likely to be supported and of a high quality. The UK got it right and I really don't understand why TFS is so critical of the decision.
An M2M solution. Unless you pronounce it "muhtomuh".
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Also, there's no such thing as "a telecom".
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My issue is with the information leakage: A high resolution tracking of my power consumption reveals basically everything I do at home, what and when. That is a massive invasion of privacy. And for what? The old meter costs less, has less potential for failure and error and uses less power. Even the ten minutes per year it takes their people to read it, if they don't trust me to call them and tell them the reading, can't cost more than exchanging all meters for more complex and expensive devices which need a network infrastructure.
The old systems used MORE power and had a high potential for failure. They were just plain awful. No one is going to be making the old 50's style analog meters with the rotating disk and gears that wore down over time. And the old meters could be read remotely with a telescope just like the new meters, giving high resolution data on what you've been doing (tedious and impractical though).
But once a month is too long a time. That's the problem with most utilities these days, the literally do not know where their electricity is being sent or how much is being used at any one time. The big transmission companies do know this, the stuff that cross state lines, those guys pay attention to it like a hawk. But the smaller distribution guys are less concerned, and the local utilities are mostly blind. The old model was to take power from one place and stick it on their wires and try to forget the details except once a month. For instance, most utilities do not send someone out to check on a power outage until at least three people phone in complaining because they have no way to tell that there's a neighborhood outage without the customers calling in (and with everyone on cellular, that means phoning in will be harder to do). Another problem is even knowing what voltage is being supplied. The monthly read does not tell you that the neighborhood has been under voltage for a long time. A device on the transformers or cap banks in the neighborhood lets the utilities know when they're not working right (it's not uncommon for some people to use transformers for target practice).
How can they run and manage their grid effectively if they don't even know what's happening on the grid? That's why those old systems were the stupid grid. Not the average-intelligence grid, or even the occasionally-needs-tutoring-grid.
But if you don't like it, in some areas you are allowed to opt out. It costs more, as they have to pay someone to go read regularly, but it's an option for you.
It's telecows, the article had a typo.
The oil and gas industries use fully documented data formats of which one from nearly fifty years ago (SEGD) is still in use which means files from the 1970s can still be read by current software with no need to convert.
If an industry as commercially focused as oil can use published open source data formats then so can this telecommunications company.
"Only Telefonica will be able to fix it." At least you're still thinking positive.
It goes to the utility. The utility may or may not contract with someone else to collect, store, and process the data on their behalf. This isn't "cloud" storage, it won't be Amazon, it's probably the company that built the solution. Over time the utility may take over this task once they're more comfortable with it.
Ie, in this case it's possible that Telefonica does this.
You will still get a "smart meter", in the sense that no one is makes the old analog systems with gears anymore. It will be an electronic system with solid state digital parts. It may not be terribly fancy, maybe just an MSP430 doing the thinking. It will store the data in eeprom so that someone can come by later and suck out the data once a month. But because you opted out of the Smart Meter networking portion and someone has to come out once a month, you'll most likely be charged an extra fee (that's what they do with PG&E).
But you may as well opt out of using a mobile phone as well. Or even the old land line. Those are already known to share data with the NSA. Worry about the hospitals and do all your health care at home, because the hospitals have been lax with security breaches.
Oh please. It doesn't store a minute by minute graph of your power usage. It simply sends a short range broadcast of your current meter reading when interrogated. It just saves the meter guy/girl knocking at your door. There are reasons to be paranoid these days, but this isn't one of them.
The old systems used MORE power and had a high potential for failure. They were just plain awful. No one is going to be making the old 50's style analog meters with the rotating disk and gears that wore down over time
You know that all of those were replaced in the UK years ago, right? UK houses all have digital (but not broadcasting) electricity metre (and gas metres, if they have gas). Are you honestly claiming that digital a metre with a little LCD display (i.e. the kind that they want to rip out and replace with 'smart' metres) uses more power than a digital metre with an LCD display and an RF transmitter?
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Irish water's smart meters block several digits of each consumer's water meter. This makes it nearly impossible for anyone to see their own utility usage. The data is sent via an unpublished protocol to Irish water's meter readers. When consumer's receive a bill, they must believe and pay it, or face fines, legal action and jail.
Some consumers are concerned by the exposure to an unknown amount of RF from the unknown protocol. Others are concerned by the safety of the haphazardly installed meter system or the possibility that the poorly installed meters might be causing leaks or mis-configured meters causing artificially high bills.
The Irish government supports this private company intervening between public water and private users. So if a consumer's remote control or outdoor thermometer on the crowded 433Mhz or 900Mhz bands interferes with the unknown protocol, they are likely to be charged with hacking.
An open protocol would have allowed independent companies to develop inexpensive consumer-focused smart meters which would have helped with the goal of reducing water wastage. As it is now, Irish water decides if and when consumer have access to their own consumption patterns, they will decide what to charge for meter-readers and they alone will determine the accuracy of the flow meters which determine their revenue.
Petrol stations don't regulate their pump's flow meters. Grocery stores don't calibrate their own fruit scales. Butchers don't calibrate their own weighing scales.
So why do we let utilities decide how their product is measured?
I have registered turingmechanics.uk. I have watched carefully for years (note my /. serial 987). I am descended academically from Turing, and after letting the mental elf numpties try to destroy my mind, and concluding that they cannot, I am confident to ring the doorbell and offer my assistance. I will for the UK Guild of Turing Mechanics for the purpose of putting Dear Alan's legacy straight. For reference, here is my entry in the mathemalogical family tree: http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu...
John_Chalisque
...to unnecessary regulation codified by politicians who don't understand the technology in question. At the end of the day, it only drives up cost and stifles innovation. At most we need to enforce a law that says you cannot operate something without the owner's permission except in cases of public emergency.
Greed is the root of all evil.
And that'll tell them what? Plus I'd think you'd soon notice someone standing outside your property every day or for hours at a time and if they did they'd probably find out more about your habits than any meter will tell them.
I'm one of the people that made [immediately ignored, of course] submissions to the smart meter survey in the UK. In it, I suggested that they supply a 'customer side' data feed, probably the most 'obvious' would be RJ45 and ethernet, USB + Wifi probably fine as well. That would permit some useful modeling/analysis etc. to take place for the benefit of the consumer, rather than Telefonica [et al.] snarfing up the data and using it to gamble on energy futures/sell it to other people.
There are a set of other 'dangers' too, predatory on-demand pricing, immediate sanction for non payment, privacy breaches and police monitoring. Conclusion smart meters are not for 'us', they are for 'them'.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Are you honestly claiming that digital a metre with a little LCD display ... uses more power than a digital metre with an LCD display and an RF transmitter?
I think the OP was comparing ANALOG meters with the new electronic ones. If you look closely, I think the "3W" on that meter means it draws 3W of power (confirmed here) - a decent electronic meter, even one with a transmitter, will consume less power than that. I do decent range ZigBee with 10-20mW of power - the transmitter pulls at most 30mA at 3.3V, so whether or not the meter has a transmitter makes little impact on the total power draw.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Well in my house the chances of any radio waves getting out are practically zero. If you crush a bit of brick the house is made out of with a hammer and then put a strong magnet in the vicinity half the material ends up stuck to the magnet. All mobile phone reception in the house is via femtocell. So they wanted to drill holes in the wall and stick an external aerial up. I told them to get lost, but they could use the RJ45 socket next to the meter if they wanted, which had a nice high speed 40/20Mbps internet connection. They didn't so that was the end of it.
The so-called 'internet of things' is just as likely being used currently as a means of surveilling people in their homes as not, and since the potetial for abuse is there in abundance, there needs to be tight regulation to ensure that it is not being used in that way, and that furthermore it is not possible to use in that way. Of course I think the 'IoT' is a stupid fad anyway. I don't need my appliances connected to the Internet, why would you?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Wait, your smart meter is inside the home?
No, if you've got a digital meter then that's a "smart meter", lower case S. If it's networked then that's part of a smart grid. I'm in the US and most of the utilities here have been moving away from the older analog meters.
Actually causes some controversy just switching to digital meters. Ie, the analog ones would slowly wear out over a few decades, meaning the gears. This meant they would report less electricity consumption than was actually used. So swap in a new accurate meter and the monthly bill goes up too. If the utility adds a fee to install the new meter, this also increases community objection to getting rid of the old meters. Some of these utilities are just plain awful at public relations and don't know how to read an angry crowd (like mine, PG&E).
That would be a telecomcom, which doesn't exist and if ever it does we know it's just time to give up; the hipsters have won.
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TFA is about the UK. No one tried to brand digital metres (which were introduced well over a decade ago and have now completely replaced the old analogue ones as the old ones reached end of life and compulsory replacement age) as smart - they're just as dumb as the old ones, just using a digital circuit instead of analogue. The controversy is over smart metres, which are ones that have a network connection.
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Digital electricity metres are not new (at least, in the UK where TFA is about). I'm not sure exactly when they introduced them, but I remember having one replaced around 2003 as part of the country-wide rolling upgrade program once they reached EOL. I doubt that there are any analogue ones left in the country. The controversy is about the ones that have wireless network connections (typically to the mobile phone network, not something short-range like ZigBee) and no security. If I were prone to conspiracy theories, then I'd think that the site that you linked to is funded by the smart metre industry to make objections look ridiculous.
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1 I am in UK. I was 'offered' ( take it or we may disconnect you!) smart meter connection. I investigated how smart meter woul call home by landline or Wifi phone signal. It turns out the mobile phone company being used by utility does not provide a signal in my area and meter does not retune to another phone company who have a very poor but available signal in the area.
2. Final solution copy letter to my member of parliament, copy to utility supplier. No smartphone to be installed , old fashioned one left. hand read by man during 3 monthly visit.
3. Second problem, UK Government wants you to be able to change utility suppliers, smart meter can only work with one supplier as it is tied to their ISP, so to change utility supplier means old hand reading and a change of meter! Real mess up.No one phone company covers more than 80% of availlable households/companies by mobile phone signal. 90 % odd by different mobile phone companies which is why I use two phones to get cover at work and at home.Only the land line due to universal provision in law (like post office mail deliveries) can go to each 'registered dwelling'. This does not cover all 'business premises' who can only get landline by business agreement.
Regards Eion MacDonald