SmartSynch will develop a communications component that enables public wireless connectivity for the EnergyAxis System by Elster, a provider of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) solutions worldwide.

The EnergyAxis System for residential, commercial, and industrial electric, water, and gas metering applications uses powerful two-way RF communications to retrieve metering information directly from meters. With Elster's REX meters, A3 ALPHA meter collectors, and polyphase A3 ALPHA meter nodes, the EnergyAxis System offers a complete metering solution that enables utilities to deploy a system that provides thorough territorial coverage. SmartSynch's technology will be integrated into A3 ALPHA meter collectors in the form of an under-the-cover communications module that enables usage data collected from the meter nodes throughout the mesh network to be transmitted securely via public wireless networks to utility information systems.

SmartSynch already offers a communications module as an integrated component within GPRS- and ReFLEX-enabled A3 ALPHA meters. The new module will allow the A3 ALPHA meter collector to leverage several different types of communications platforms, including GSM/GPRS, CDMA/1xRTT, and Wi-Fi.

The SmartSynch module featured in the A3 ALPHA meter collector will enable alternative communications from Elster's Metering Automation Server (MAS), allowing for on-request meter reads, interval data recording, outage and restoration notification, monitoring of voltage conditions, and other detailed metering alarm data. The EnergyAxis System is designed so that individual meters function as repeaters, relaying data to other meters and then to the collector. This advanced architectural design increases the number of alternate WAN public wireless network connections to the mesh network.