Smart grid – it’s where every major telecommunications provider wants to be nowadays, and Sprint is no exception.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and many other carriers are increasingly announcing partnerships and projects using their networks to link utilities to the floods of data coming from devices like smart meters, distribution monitors and grid control systems.
Sprint has a lot of smart grid projects and partnerships underway as well, but has so far stayed relatively quiet about them all. But that changed this week, as the company laid out its broad ambitions for expanding its already prominent line of business with utilities – not only on its well-used iDEN and CDMA networks, but for its next generation of wireless communications, WiMax.
That’s according to Robert Gustin, Sprint’s national program manager for utilities. About 20 percent of Sprint’s hundreds of existing utility customers are now involved with the company in some form of machine-to-machine smart grid project, he said Wednesday.
It can include things like serving as the backhaul, or wide area, network for smart meters or distribution automation equipment, he said – something wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon are doing as well (see Green Light posts here and here).
Sprint’s network will serve that purpose at utility smart grid deployments including a $200 million smart meter project planned by Florida Power & Light, Gustin said (see A Million Smart Meters for Miami).
Sprint’s smart grid work can also involve partnerships with top smart meter manufacturers and grid sensor and control device makers, he added. Companies developing devices to work on Sprint’s network include top smart meter makers GE, Elster, Landis+Gyr and Itron, he said.
It’s all part of the growing “machine-to-machine” business for wireless carriers, that is, linking devices that can “talk” to one another directly. While utilities aren’t the biggest customer for such products and services, they’re growing fast, Gustin said – after all, there are roughly 320 million electric, gas and water meters in the United States.
Beyond meters, one of Sprint’s utility clients – Gustin wouldn’t say which one – recently told him they’re expecting to install about 12 million smart grid devices over the coming decade that will need a communications network of some kind.
Of course, utilities have a broad array of options to link up those devices, from proprietary and open wireless or power line communications for local area networks to cellular, fiber optic or satellite communications for wide area, backhaul networks.
And while cellular remains a prevalent option for wide area networks, North American utilities have so far shied away from using it for the localized linking of smart meters and other devices.
