As utility companies eagerly plan their smart grid network there are many aspects of consideration before the actual implementation. Many technological and specification requirements must be met in order to build a smart grid network that could maximize the benefits for utility companies. One of the requirements is a dependable 2-way communication network between the utility control centers and meters at customers’ premise. Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) establishes the communication solutions between utilities and customers and is an essential enabling technology, as part of overall smart grid strategies.

AMI requires an intelligent and reliable medium to provide continuous point-to-point communication connectivity, from smart meters to aggregation nodes, and data uplink to the AMI Control center. Typically, a completed AMI system includes smart meters, data concentrators, backhaul communication, head-end data collectors, data management system, and then interface with back-office applications.

The “smart meter” is a commodity and can be separated from the rest of the AMI system. Each smart meter can serve as a hub or repeater for other smart meter communication with data concentrators. Smart meter will also serve as an interface with HAN. The data concentrators are the local data hub. The communication between each meter and the data concentrators considered as “local area network (LAN)” communication, various technologies can be used. Each data concentrator can receive a range of meter data, depending on the technology used, from hundreds to a thousand. The backhaul communication or “wide area network (WAN)” of AMI represents the communication solutions between the data concentrators and head-end data collectors. Again, various technologies can be used for WAN.

The basic requirement of AMI is incorporating the ability to interconnect the customers and the utility at any given time, providing real-time metering and analytic data with minimum delays and losses. And yet the same such planned AMI network should be scalable to support future applications and requirements. It is essential that both current and future applications must be taken into consideration when choosing a network technology for AMI system. Advanced networking from the control center to the customer premise creates the fundamental networking infrastructure on which smart grid initiative was intended for. It enables customer interaction – consumers now have the ability to control and monitor their electricity usage remotely by leveraging this advanced network. Such platform also provides utility companies with open doors to many future business opportunities and applications they currently do not have access to. Figure 1 shows examples of a smart grid network and functional components.