Product category:
Wireless Communications
News Release from: Alpha Micro Components | Subject: Trac Monitor
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 13 June 2005
GPRS modems collect Turkish meter data
A Turkish IT solutions provider turned to Alpha Micro Components for help with a remote metering project.
Turkish IT solutions provider Bentas has built a reputation for developing software for large corporations within Turkey Following discussions with BIS Energy, a leading Turkish electricity company, Bentas was commissioned to design a solution, which would gather information from the company's electricity meters in order to determine energy usage throughout the country
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 9 Feb 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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In line with a Government directive, electricity companies were required to submit capacity usage on an hourly basis and BIS Energy required a solution to enable them to do this.
As many of the electricity meters are located in rural areas, without a device which could monitor the meters remotely, data would have to be collected manually.
Although Bentas had the expertise to develop the software, which would analyse the data collected by the meters, it did not have the technology to interrogate the devices remotely.
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The Turkish company turned to UK-based Alpha Micro Components, a value added reseller of electronic components that had successfully implemented a solution for one of Bentas' partner organisations.
Kemal Aksuyek, Managing Director of Bentas, commented: "Working with Alpha Micro was a great strategic fit".
"We are good at creating software solutions, but Alpha Micro really excelled in supplying the hardware to support our software".
"Alpha Micro takes the time to understand the customer's needs and can produce solutions at lightening speed".
Due to the remote locations of BIS Energy's electricity meters, using a fixed telephone line to connect the devices would not have been logistically possible, as the network infrastructure in Turkey is still in its development stages and phone lines are few and far between.
Alpha Micro recommended that GPRS be harnessed to send data from the electricity meters back to Bentas' server for analysis.
Basing the solution on its highly successful Trac Monitor (total remote access and control) unit, the design team at Alpha Micro wrote an application into the unit to ensure that the same data, in the same language, would be extracted from each brand of electricity meter.
The Trac Monitor units are then connected easily to the electricity meters via their RS232 serial ports.
Alpha Micro has taken all the work out of creating a stand-alone GPRS modem, and virtually any electrical device with a serial port can now become internet enabled.
The Trac Monitor unit comes with integrated TCP/IP and PPP protocol stacks, ensuring that the modem continues to send the data until the server receiving the information instructs the Trac Monitor unit that the information has been received.
Using Alpha Micro's solution, BIS Energy can network the electricity meters into Bentas' computer systems, eliminating the need to dial into each meter independently, enabling Bentas to receive the data continuously or on demand.
GPRS is in essence an always-on connection.
No dial-up modem is necessary, so data can be sent and received when needed, providing a perfect solution for Bentas to gather the desired data from BIS Energy's electricity meters whenever necessary.
Before data are sent, they are first split into a series of packets and then reassembled at its destination.
As the transfer rate of data exchange is much greater than can be achieved using a traditional fixed line network, data are transmitted faster and more efficiently over a mobile network, resulting in lower running costs.
"The beauty of GPRS is that it is so versatile".
"For many countries, due to their great expanse, it is impractical to used fixed telephone lines to connect electrical devices".
"Why spend millions digging up roads and laying cables, when you can fix a GPRS modem to an electrical device, providing a wireless connection which sends data through the Ethernet?", asks Alpha Micro's Managing Director Christos Papakyriacou.
However, the solution to the Bentas dilemma was more complicated than simply fitting an "off-the-shelf" GPRS modem to BIS Energy's electricity meters.
BIS Energy currently uses four different types of meter, so the challenge for Alpha Micro was to design a solution which would extract the same data from each brand of meter, before sending the data on to Bentas for analysis.
Trac Monitor has been specifically designed for the fixed wireless market as a stand-alone solution for data access and control and audio transmission.
The device is easy to attach to any electronic device.
Using an always-on GPRS connection, the unit effortlessly connects the attached device to a host computer.
As in the case with Turkey, GPRS is particularly useful in countries with a less developed telecommunications infrastructure.
Kemal Aksuyek continued: "From our early discussions with Alpha Micro, they understood the complexity of this project".
"They went to great lengths to understand the various nuances of each of the electricity meters used by BIS Energy, and provided us with a product that exactly met out needs".
"To evaluate the effectiveness of Alpha Micro's Trac Monitor, we initially ordered 125 units; however, we have been really pleased with the results so far and intend to purchase more in the future".
Papakyriacou concludes: "Trac Monitor is an easy way of providing a device with a fixed wireless connection, giving companies greater control over their assets, and remote data-communication from anywhere in the world".
"Trac Monitor is more than an out-of-the-box solution".
"It analyses data, has two-way communication and provides a complete solution".
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