Utilities may get dedicated chunk of spectrum for smart grid

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission joined the alphabet soup of federal agencies that's contemplating what its role might be in bringing our electric grid a bit of intelligence. It's not unreasonable—smart grid devices are all about starting a two-way conversation between utilities and their distribution equipment and end-user devices. But the FCC held the hearing as part of its broadband initiative, and the hearings allowed those in the industry to press the Commission to allocate the smart grid a chunk of spectrum in order to provide its components guaranteed wireless broadband. Not everyone at the hearing felt it was necessary; at least one person providing testimony suggested that existing cellular networks could easily absorb the added bandwidth. But many of those providing testimony pointed out that deadzones and strangled bandwidth might be acceptable to cellular providers, but wouldn't be tolerated by utilities.