Renewed supply contract with Actaris Belgium for C&I metering devices

Renewed supply contract with Actaris Belgium for C&I metering devices
MV-90 is a proven host solution for data collection, management and analysis from commercial and industrial (C&I) metering devices. The Belgian electricity companies Eandis, Netmanagement Réseaux Wallonie and Sibelga use this MV-90 host system for Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) of electricity meters in the field such as the Actaris SL7000 industrial electricity meter. The SL7000 meter, serially connected (RS-232) to a Bausch Indubox GSM modem, communicates transparently with the MV-90 host system.
Renewed supply contract with Actaris Belgium for C&I metering devices
         
 
 
Bausch Datacom industrial product news: April 2008
         
 
 
 

Reading more than 15000 industrial electricity meters in Belgium with Bausch Indubox GSM modems: contract prolongation with Actaris Belgium...

Contract starting in Spring, 2002…
MV-90 is a proven host solution for data collection, management and analysis from commercial and industrial (C&I) metering devices. The Belgian electricity companies Eandis, Netmanagement Réseaux Wallonie and Sibelga use this MV-90 host system for Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) of electricity meters in the field such as the Actaris SL7000 industrial electricity meter. The SL7000 meter, serially connected (RS-232) to a Bausch Indubox GSM modem, communicates transparently with the MV-90 host system. The MV-90 host system communicates with the remote GSM modems through Bausch Proxima ISDN modems (V.110 protocol) which are serially connected to the MV-90 system. Actaris Belgium and Bausch Datacom work together in this AMR project since 2002. At the end of 2007 more than 15000 Bausch Indubox GSM modems were communicating on a daily base with the MV-90 host system ! 
                  

 
 
                     

New contract in January, 2008...
Bausch Datacom delivered Indubox GSM and Indubox GSM II modems until December 2007.
In the beginning of 2008 Bausch Datacom renewed the supply contract with Actaris Belgium. The new contract will last at least through 2009 and possibly longer (2010) and concerns the delivery of Bausch Indubox GSM IV and Indubox PSTN modems.
The same extended electromagnetical immunity tests for heavy-duty industrial environments are applicable on these new modems : to test the immunity of the the new PSTN and GSM modem to radiated electromagnetical fields from digital radio telephones (ENV50204) Laborelec creates a test environment which generates 30 V/m field strengths in stead of the standard 'normal CE’ field strength of 3 V/m (CISPR24 standard CE level = 3 V/m).
New with before is the extra RS-485 communication interface - Indubox PSTN as well as Indubox GSM IV - as well as the fact that the modems have to be ‘GPRS Ready’. Today (April 2008) all modems used in the Belgian automatic meter reading landscape are normal GSM data modems. For the new industrial meter reading contract since January 2008 Eandis, Netmanagement Wallonie and Sibelga expect the modem to be a GSM modem which is also “GPRS Ready”. The only problem is that the future GPRS scenario in the Belgian electricity market is still unknown. So we had to implement a very specific open AT application in the Q24PL Wavecom processor of the Indubox GSM IV modem. This application allows 3 working modes to the modem: CSD mode (modem acts as a normal GSM data modem), GPRS mode (modem can receive APN GPRS parameters by SMS but there is no GPRS attachment or APN connection, this mode exists mainly to do an FTP upgrade), Socket serve mode (the modem is in a constant TCP socket listen mode after receiving an SMS and then acts as a socket server, the APN connection and the socket listen mode will be checked regularly (60 seconds) so that the modem is always ready for an originating socket client).
Switching between the 3 modes is possible for example by sending an SMS to the modem with very specific parameters.
It is also possible to change the Open AT application itself ‘over the air’ (OTA); when the modem receives a SMS with specific instructions it will try to make a connection to a FTP server port, download the new OpenAT application, do eventually a 16 bit CRC/MD5 code check to see if the download has been done correctly and then restart with the new Open AT application.
It is important to understand that this is only one possible scenario. Each customer has other demands and each "GPRS ready" situation might be completely different...

 

Indubox GSM IV schematic view

Headlines Indubox GSM IV

  • Embedded Q24PL Wavecom Quadband (800/900/1800/1900 MHZ) module with ARM7 processor, supporting GSM data and GPRS Class 10
  • Wall mountable GSM/GPRS modem in sealable housing
  • Open AT firmware version 6.57d: different Open AT applications can be loaded inside the Wavecom processor : for an example: see above (new contract in January, 2008...)
  • Sealable V0/IP-52 enclosure & connector cover with transparent lid
  • Universal integrated power supply 85-264 Vac (optional: 10-60 Vdc)
  • Especially conceived for 'heavy' industrial environments: tested and approved according to TST 25-3 extended immunity requirements in the Belgium electricity market
  • Isolated and in parallel usuable 3-wire RS-232 and RS-485 serial interfaces
  • Non isolated standard serial RS-232 configuration interface (RJ-45) with 8 contacts (configuration via AT-commands)
  • 2-pin (mains) and 3-pin (RS-232 and RS-485 interface) removable terminal block with screw contacts
  • Long term, programmable watchdog: the Indubox GSM/GPRS IV will be reseted automatically each 24 hours to prevent a lock-up
  • 12 LED indicators monitoring the status of the modem
  • CE approved, TST 25-3 approved (extended immunity test report)
date_range Published on 09-04-2008 00:00
person Dominiek Truyers
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