“Smart” meters have rightfully received a bad reputation, which is why utilities are going with “advanced” meters now.

New Hampshire Electric Coop uses the exact same brand of smart meters (Elster) as Green Mountain Power, yet the New Hampshire Legislature has bought the lie that a meter is only “smart” when it contains a ZigBee/Home Area Network chip. It can communicate all day long within an RF mesh network, but it’s still not “smart,” at least not in New Hampshire. Meanwhile, Green Mountain Power, which certainly has admitted to deploying “smart meters” does not use the term (or even the word “meter”) on their webpage: http://www.greenmountainpower.com/smart/

Even NSTAR, a utility that has publicly come out against the “smart grid”—calling it “irrational”—continues to use Automated Meter Reading (AMR) “bubble up” meters which pulse RF every 30 seconds, for a truck that’s there once every month or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyt8oWthbMI

There is “wake up” RF meter technology, which operates in a relatively sane way, only transmitting when a meter reader is there to activate the transmitter.

They couldn’t have picked a worse target–indefatigably vocal–for a gag order. If it weren’t so draconian, it would be laughable. They need to hire tacticians “smart” enough to stop poring gasoline on the fire. Gag orders usually arise out of the terms of litigation settlement, not proposed in advance as a provocation to litigation. With no more penalties to threaten, they’re running out of cards to play.

It is entirely gratuitous of them to offer a “dispute” escrow by proposing that the fees be paid to a “non-billed sub-account”, pending CPUC’s way-overdue Final Decision. It’s a silly ploy to hang Josh out to dry, since indefinite postponement of the Final Decision has effectively become CPUC’s Final Solution.

They throw out the bone: “If the CPUC rules that the subject fees are invalid, PSREC will waive all of the above listed fees, and allow the Member to continue to self-read his analog meter at no charge.” At the same time, they know with certainty that’s never gonna happen, because, as Senator Ted Gaines learned recently from the CPUC, “Although the CPUC has a process for customers to pay into an escrow account to prevent service shut-offs while disputing a bill that may be inaccurate or incorrect, the CPUC said that does not apply to opt-out fees because the fees were established by a Commission decision.”

But not to despair–the customers will be “allowed” to self-read their (Trojan?) meter. The authors of this proposal fancy themselves to be masters in the art of compromise! With good faith such as theirs, who needs treachery?

Marshall acts like someone who doesn’t like it when anyone gets to close to his corrupt operation.

Has anyone asked where the $50million dollars went? How much do you want to bet some of it ended up in Bob Marshall’s pocket? Wouldn’t that explain why the guy gets so uppity when he’s recorded or being called out?

Maybe instead of calling the Sheriff, it’s time to call the FBI about a nice fat corruption probe or some small-ton thugs. Easy pickings.

On the contrary, they give OUR TAX MONEY – BY THE BILLIONS – to apparently shameless, heartless electric companies, that blithely place these “murder meters” right outside the rooms of our children, our elderly, our infirm, all of our precious family members, KNOWING that RF shoots straight through the wall and into and through its occupants.

People need to start asking themselves: Why is this not only being allowed to happen, but is frantically being forced down our throats, as quickly as possible?