No abstract

Tenaga Nasional, the electric utility company in Peninsular Malaysia have been installing electronic meters that can establish wireless connectivity over the mobile phone network since 2005. Several locations including Ringlet, Cameron Highland have been pointed out as having difficulties in establishing a stable connection to the national main server. Empirical investigations had been carried out to determine the availability of service coverage and the associated signal received power levels at the said location. The findings are reported in this article. The outcomes from the measurement campaign were used to deduce the likely solution that is capable of establishing a more reliable link. Field trials involving installations of high-gain antennas and signal boosters as potential solutions were also carried out at selected sites within the district. It is the objective of the study to develop a total solution that can ultimately address the communication issue.

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The convergence of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) and Information Communication Technology (ICT) allows the mobile and wireless application to be implemented in Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) system. In addition to the advancement of cellular technology and spectrum refarming, GSM-based AMR system is continuously facing propagation challenges that affect the stability of wireless connectivity. A field study was conducted to investigate the real reasons for having predicaments in coverage behaviour introduced by GSM-based AMR system for three local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Malaysia. The main objective of this study is to verify signal coverage performance at identified AMR locations that were reported having signal lost. We have categorized the challenges and depicted the signal quality readings that show signal performances for different service providers. The outcomes form the basis for our future development of cognitive network selection prototype for utility (gas, electricity, water) companies wireless communication smart grid.

No abstract