[arin-ppml] Straw poll on special policy for electric energy industry

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Robert E. Seastrom wrote:

> t there is a compelling case for globally unique
> addresses on power meters - outsourcing of bill generation and
> collection.  

The utility metering schemes - such as the sensus
scheme I posted that is in operation, on real live gear - clearly
have the meters on a completely private network.  The cost to
putting that network on the Internet would be more than just
extending a private circuit from it to a 3rd party billing
org.

I realize someone could probably make a case for putting your
refrigerator on the Internet.  But, just because you can do
something, doesn't mean you should do something.

If you can come up with an actual in-production scheme that
in in service in a utility in the United States that has the
meters on the public Internet, with each meter running it's
own IP address, then I'll agree you have a point, otherwise I
think the supposition is as ridiculous as putting your
refrigerator on the Internet.

No wonder you don't want to discuss PGE.  There's a gulf between
theory and implementation, and this chicken-little scenario
concerns theory.

As the guy from the Midwest said, "Show me!"

 > It's also not uncommon for a utility to have a
> sufficiently large number of meters that they won't all fit in
> 10.0.0.0/8 even assuming really optimistic subnet engineering.
> 

Even more reason to not assign IP addressing to the meters
themselves.  In the Sensus scheme the online literature on it only
says the antenna controller that all the meters report to in a
given area has an IP address on it.

Ted