Sizing up Telecom's influence on the Utility Industry and Smart Grid Development

Publication: FierceTelecom
Issue Date: July 2012

For those of us who have lived through the advances made in communications technology over the past 20 years, it is hard to imagine how we functioned with so little information a mere two decades ago. In the preceding decades, much of the innovation that took place in telecommunications was behind the scenes and largely invisible to the consumer. Entire infrastructures changed as consumers experienced innovations that took them from the rotary dial to touch tone phones. The same is true today as wireless technologies enter their 4G era (which represents many more than four refreshes of underlying infrastructure). The difference in the last 20 years is that more of the innovation and change has been experienced, and funded, by the consumer, as they elect to pay for value added services like texting and data plans while receiving new handsets every two years. Read more