Communications upgrade for first responders - Washington Times: Congress must decide between a fiscally irresponsible 20th-century model of dedicated, expensive public-safety networks that become rapidly obsolete or a 21st-century model of cost-effective public-private, shared infrastructure. Our country can afford neither billions of dollars to build and operate a new dedicated public-safety network nor the reallocation of commercial spectrum to dedicated public-safety use when a far more cost-effective path forward is available.

Consumers Energy: interoperability, in-house and out | Intelligent Utility: In-house, Gillmore [director of enterprise architecture and standards and chief architect] explained, "guiding principle number one is loosely coupled, layered architectures. You should be able to change layers out without breaking the upper stack. We've taken those principles into our architectural smart grid approach for interoperability. Loosely coupled and layered architecture allows electric meters to be agnostic of the underlying communications technology. Our selected technology allows us to use any of the nation's major wireless carriers. This approach also allows us to use any electric meter technology, as appropriate."