XPost: can.internet.highspeed   
   From: chuck@nil.car   
      
   Some Guy  wrote in news:4C1A39D6.866A8B79@guy.com:   
      
   > Our residential meter was recently changed here in this SW-Ontario city   
   > where I live.   
   >   
   > I happened to be home so I asked the guy some questions.   
   >   
   > He took a picture of the existing meter with some sort of   
   > industrial-looking (rubber-encased) cell phone, and punched in some   
   > numbers into the phone.  This was the final meter reading I guess.   
   >   
   > Then he cut the security tag off the band that holds the meter in place   
   > and placed a large plastic collar around the meter and pulled the meter   
   > out of it's socket.  He then took a new meter and simply plugged it in   
   > (matching the 4 prongs or contacts with their mates) before pushing it   
   > into place.  Then he installed a new band and security tag.  This took   
   > all of about 2 minutes.  He was walking from house to house, dressed in   
   > an orange jump suit, wearing a hard hat, pulling a small hand cart   
   > loaded with meters.  He puts a letter in the mailbox (I didn't read mine   
   > yet) before he changes the meter.   
   >   
   > I asked how these meters communicate their data, and he said they have a   
   > low power radio transmitter that talks to neighboring meters and the   
   > data gets passed along like a chain.  At some point they must have a   
   > local area receiver mounted to a telephone pole or located in a phone   
   > pedestal and that's where the data gets uplinked to a billing center.  I   
   > asked if there would be (or could be) a small display unit inside the   
   > home that could display this info in real time, but he said he didn't   
   > think so - that instead you could go to a web site and look up your   
   > usage that way.   
   >   
   Daisy chained? I guess they don't want to pay somebody to read those meters   
   every few months. Everyone's getting cheap. We've had ours for a while. All   
   I can say is the display is *wierd*.   
      
   > The guy installing this was contracted in from a nearby town that had   
   > already performed the conversion to electronic meter.  He said that his   
   > residential meter was different than the one he was putting on my house   
   > - the LCD display was in a different place, fewer bar codes on the   
   > meter, etc.   
   >   
   > I'm thinking that would give the utility company some great   
   > IP-to-address mapping that they can re-sell to geo-ip providers.   
   >   
   > Maybe if I encase my meter in tin foil (grounding the foil should be no   
   > problem) then they'd get no data from my meter.  Hmmm...   
      
   LOL. Yup keep up the vigilance.   
      
      
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