The smart grid opportunity

The smart grid may just become the next big opportunity for providers of both telecom services and equipment — the questions are when and how much. According to Cisco Systems, when it announced its plans to offer smart grid solutions, the smart grid communications infrastructure market is expected to generate as much as $20 billion per year by 2013 — a sizeable sum that could benefit many providers of telecom solutions.Why? Because a high-speed, highly-secure, two-way, IP-based, fully integrated communications architecture that addresses the backbone, metro and last mile (also referred to as spur) segments of the network is key to the smart grid. It is this network that enables real-time information and control, to allow every part of the grid to both "talk" and "listen" from the substation to — and into — the customer premises.