1) A utility in Massachusetts is asking for many millions $$ to replace smeters that have reached the end of their short lifespan. I have asked the author of this article when the smeters were first installed. I wonder if they were in place in 2001 or so. Industry insiders admitted to US Congress that the expected lifespan is 5-7 years, not 20. Of course newer smeters are more 5G ready and all the utilities will be wanting to “upgrade”.
People in Mass. continue to ask questions about safety and health, just as we do. The cost for these new smeters is very high. Even if all 1.4 million were included in the $620 million, each replacement would cost close to $450. And as we said in 2010, this is a bottomless pit. Always “upgrades” or replacement due to short life span. Analogs cost around $50 and lasted for 30-40 years.
I bet BC Hydro has already started to replace its smeters. We most likely will never be told. In 2016 Hydro replaced 88,000 for a cost of $21 million — faulty but apparently not covered by warranty. https://theprovince.com/news/b-c-hydro-must-remove-more-than-88000-smart-meters
(click on photos to enlarge)
Hi-tech meters could hike electric bills
“Eversource, which serves about 1.4 million electricity customers in Massachusetts, is asking state regulators to sign off on a five-year, $620 million plan to replace hundreds of thousands of outdated “smart meters” with newer devices.
The utility says about 740,000 of the meters are nearing the end of their 20-year lifespan, and replacing them with the same equipment would be a waste of money….
Meanwhile, the plans face opposition from individuals and groups that advocate against the expansion of wireless technology in light of health and safety concerns.
Nina Anderson, president of the Scientific Alliance for Education, wrote to the DPU that “crucial questions about the health, safety and environmental impacts of smart grid and smart meter investments have not been adequately addressed.”
“No further investigations of how to spend the ratepayer’s money to modernize the grid should be held until the question is addressed, of whether or not the health and safety of all customers can be protected, without cost-shifting the burden to customers, and without discriminatory surcharges,” she wrote.”
2) A great letter that someone in the US wrote to the New York Times re. the utility/energy companies making huge profits while leaving the infrastructure in many/most places such as New Orleans at risk. Here, too, in BC, why are the power lines underground where fire would not destroy them and where they could not make the fires worse or even cause them? I’m removing her name because I didn’t ask her permission to include it.
To the Editor,
Re: Levees Are Tested as Hurricane Ida Pummels Gulf Coast
Extraordinary efforts and investments have gone into shoring up the levee system in New Orleans. Thankfully, they seem to have worked.
In contrast, Entergy and most electric utilities in this country have spent the last decade shoring up their profits, by spending billions of our tax and rate payer funds on data collecting “smart” meters, instead of hardening the electric grid in preparation for severe weather events and fires.
Entergy stated that its equipment suffered “ catastrophic transmission damage,” resulting in a total power failure for the residents of the city of New Orleans. For this reason, lives and property will be lost. Entergy is to blame, not Hurricane Ida. Katrina was a warning. Entergy ignored it.
X – President
www.NYSUMA.org
3) The industry plans for expansion of 5G to be exponential in the next couple of years, both for indoor and outdoor units. I do not understand a lot of things in this article but it’s clear that plans are to engulf our homes and neighbourhoods, most likely including schools and hospitals, with 5G. CPE stands for Customer Premises Equipment. I wonder if the conversion box Telus is insisting on installing in our homes with the fiber-connected phones could include a 5G modem. Something else to investigate.
Dell’Oro: 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) deployments to be driven by lower cost CPE
“With those operator commitments already in place, we estimate that the total number of 5G FWA devices shipping to operators this year will easily exceed 3 million units and could push 4 million units. The vast majority of these units will be to support sub-6Ghz service offerings, though we also expect to see millimeter wave units, as some operators use a combination of those technologies to provide both extensive coverage and fiber-like speeds in areas where the competition from fixed broadband providers is more intense. Overall, however, we expect volumes first from sub-6GHz units this year and into next year, followed by increasing volumes of millimeter wave units beginning in the latter part of 2022 and into 2023.
We also anticipate that the vast majority of 5G FWA deployments will rely on indoor gateways that combine a 5G modem with a WiFi 6 access point for signal distribution within the home. Many of these gateways will also be mesh-capable and will be paired with satellite units to blanket homes with WiFi coverage and to eliminate dead spots within the home.
There will be situations where outdoor units will be required, particularly in the case of millimeter wave deployments which require line of sight because of the high-frequency ranges being used. But even in the case of sub-6Ghz 5G FWA deployments, outdoor units will be required when homes or apartments have very thick-paned windows or are located in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings.”
Letters:
Submitted via form at: https://applications.crtc.gc.ca/question/eng/public-inquiries-form?t=8&_ga=2.198041066.451283646.1630452338-1364551294.1630452338 and with a similar version sent to the Commission for Complaints for Telecom and Television Service <response@ccts-cprst.ca>
CRTC has agreed that TelusBC can end maintenance of its copper lines for residential phone service and replace it with digital, fiber optic, etc. According to Telus the replacement phone will be dependent upon electricity and during an outage a back up battery will provide power for 2-4 hours if the battery is fully charged. After that period of time or if the battery is not fully charge, the phone will no longer be working, not even to make emergency 911 calls.
Part of Telus’s responsibilities as a provider of telephone service is to ensure that 911 access is available. I understand that for prolonged outages even copper line service will be dead, but this service will last far longer than the new, battery-dependent service.
How is CRTC able to approve this new type of phone service knowing that for many no 911 will be available in the event of even a fairly short outage? Now that we are experiencing more frequent and stronger storms due to climate change outages can be expected to occur more frequently and last longer. What considerations has CRTC given this situation?
You have told me that CRTC does not have jurisdiction over telecoms’ infrastructure or equipment, but certainly it has jurisdiction over the provision of 911 service to the Canadian public. I would like to know if Telus has been advised that it must ensure that this vital service is provided even with this new non-copper line phone service.
Thank you.
Sharon Noble
Sharon Noble, Director, Coalition to Stop Smart Meters
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe