Verizon is hoping to help utility companies ease into the coming age of the Internet of Things (IoT).
The company today announced “Grid Wide Utility Solutions,” a new IoT platform service that aims to ease the pain of modernizing the grid for utility companies.
Now available in the U.S., Grid Wide offers electric utility companies an integrated solution for smart metering, demand response, meter data management and distribution monitoring and control.
According to a press release, Verizon said the solution can maximize the benefits of smart meters and comes equipped with a wide range of cloud-based applications intended to help utilities companies boost revenue and keep costs down.
“Historically, utility companies have constructed costly communications networks and installed premise-based servers designed to last for at least a decade,” said Jay Olearain, director of business development for energy & utilities, IoT Connected Solutions at Verizon. “The industry has since realized that the coverage, reliability and security of public wireless networks have evolved well beyond anything that they can construct on their own efficiently and with scale.”
Olearain said that Verizon pre-built Grid Wide as an as-a-service model, which the company hopes will remove the complexities, time and cost for utilities with having to build their own solution.
“As a result, utilities don’t have to swap out their entire meter population, they can start to solve the problem areas right now on a per-month, per-meter cost basis,” he added.
Verizon said its revenue from the IoT and telematics totaled approximately $165 million in second-quarter 2015 and $320 million year to date.
