Comments on: Stop Smart Meters! Stands in Solidarity with Occupy Wall St.

By: Charyl Zehfus

Charyl Zehfus — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:51:38 +0000

Please don’t forget the government’s role in this: all roads lead to the FCC, whose lax standards enable the wireless industry to flourish! Until national standards change, businesses and utilities will have an alibi!
Also, at least two recent presidents have played a role in the National Broadband and Smart Grid plans, both of which expose the population to more and more microwaves. Janet Newton of EMR Policy Institute wrote and excellent letter about the problem. http://www.emrpolicy.org/news/press/5jun2011_obama_wireless_initiative.pdf

By: Redi Kilowatt

Redi Kilowatt — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:15:48 +0000

Yes indeed, this big global corporate push of selling wireless technology is starting to explode.
But the sad facts are, all this wireless technology has a serious downside, and is only marketed to citizens to sell electronic products to the masses.
All this wireless stuff in the world will not replace wire and cable systems. Wireless is dangerous, not secure, not reliable, not the best way to transmit data, easily compromised and consumes vast amounts of electrical energy to transmit RF.
As an example, in northern California, our electric corporation (PG&E) has 10 million electric meters that they want to convert to wireless radio transmitting meters. Transforming electrical energy to radio frequency is only 75 percent efficient, so 10 million electric meters transmitting 1 watt 24/7 requires 1.25 million watts per hour times 24 hours= 30 million watt hours per day (paid for by the ratepayers) to transmit monthly billing data only, and that is just in northern California. And that does not include the data collector repeaters that go to the mobile phone networks and the giant server farms to process these monthly billings. It is just a scam to sell more power, under the guise that “somehow” this system will save energy-what a crock of dung !
At the CPUC workshop on Sept. 14, executives admitted that the wireless meters are not what they were promoted to be, that they can’t monitor individual appliance usage, they are not real time energy use meters, they are not time of use meters, they are not compateble with people who have solar or other systems that backfeed power to the grid, that they have nothing to do with the power grid or load demands, pricing, grid monitoring functions or preventing outages. They are strictly wireless revenue collection devices that PG&E uses to calculate a customers monthly bill.
Basically, they have already forced the sale of this wireless revenue collection system on every ratepayer, whether it works or not, PG&E doesn’t care, the sale has been made. Even people that have analog meters (I am one of them) have paid for the manufacture, shipping, installation (no testing-they don’t work here), profit and markup and kickbacks to the CPUC and other government officials. And I don’t even want , need or have one of those new worthless, simple, cheap and useless meters.
It’s all about selling wireless products on a global scale.
All these giant multinational corporations rely on wire and cable systems to operate their manufacturing plants, for security, communications and automation systems, they cannot and will not trust wireless for any of the essential functions, they just want to sucker the rest of the public into buying their marginally functional products. It’s called many things, marketing hype, misleading statements, false advertising and brainwashing. GO WTO !!

By: Redi Kilowatt

Redi Kilowatt — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:17:10 +0000

In reply to Alisha.

I have not heard of that company, but there are many security and life safety companies that have in home alarm monitoring, but they are all wired systems.
For security and life safety, using wireless technology is not reliable, safe or secure. Any professional security company only uses wired devices for their intrusion alarm systems, all the IR motion detectors, panic buttons, door and window switches , glass break sensors, driveway traffic loop detectors, cameras, high water alarms and smoke detectors are all hard wired to the supervisory controlled alarm panel that has a landline telephone dialer interface to the alarm company dispatch center. So this a new twist to sell wireless systems for life safety, but no, they will not be tied to the national power grid, so you don’t have to worry about that.
Sure, one can buy wireless alarm systems at Radio Shack that have dialers, but they are not UL approved for security uses and they say not to program those wireless system dialers to call the police. The police in many areas are starting to charge for false alarms now, and using wireless security devices that can be interfered with by the new radio transmitting electric meters could be a dangerous and expensive mistake.
Wired systems for securityare still the gold standard, and wire and cable is here to stay, and doing very well.
Let Vivint have their try at marketing wireless security and life systems, wait and see all the problems that they have. The plan could be a total flop and lose money, perhaps that is the intent, to launder some money, especially if they are backed by Goldman-Sachs.

By: SOS FL

SOS FL — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:18:18 +0000

Thank you: Josh, Sandi, Amy, Orlean and so, so many more of our California supporters. Your very hard work is more than appreciated. I will never give up the fight for a healthy and safe environment until every one of us has refuge from forced electric pollution in our own homes. “No sword formed against me shall prosper”.

By: Alisha

Alisha — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:02:55 +0000

There is a relatively new player in the Smart Grid arena. Vivint.

Vivint Smart Grid is already contracting with municipalities to install smart meters. Their smart home products will eventually tie into their smart grid installations. Their smart home control panels are linked wirelessly to their monitoring centers. Right now the monitoring centers monitor emergency needs of their customers, but could easily begin to monitor energy and water usage.

This company is backed by Goldman-Sachs and has all the resources needed to be a major player in the smart grid system.

DO NOT install any Vivint equipment in your home, and fight against the installation of smart meters by your local utilities.