About a month ago, a construction accident (completely unrelated to Ingenu) caused a series of power and telephone poles to be disrupted in Chilquinta, Chile. A retaining wall failed (in fantastic fashion!) next to the pole where an RPMA access point happened to be installed. This caused the access point to lose power and fall back to backup battery power. This is where RPMA’s robustness really began to shine.

Chilquinta uses its network to monitor electric meters using an Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. This RPMA-connected system communicates with meters and improves efficiency thus reducing cost while also improving customer service. The RPMA access point operated on battery power for hours after the construction accident, as it was designed to do. All the while, the AP continued to operate and communicate messages to and from the meters.

About a month ago, a construction accident (completely unrelated to Ingenu) caused a series of power and telephone poles to be disrupted in Chilquinta, Chile. A retaining wall failed (in fantastic fashion!) next to the pole where an RPMA access point happened to be installed. This caused the access point to lose power and fall back to backup battery power. This is where RPMA’s robustness really began to shine.

Chilquinta uses its network to monitor electric meters using and Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. This RPMA-connected system communicates with meters and improves efficiency thus reducing cost while also improving customer service. The RPMA access point operated on battery power for hours after the construction accident, as it was designed to do. All the while, the AP continued to operate and communicate messages to and from the meters.

When the backup battery finally died, the next layer of robustness in the RPMA network kicked in.

RPMA wireless modules in the smart, connected meters automatically found the next best AP to connect to, which is also by design.

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It turns out that four of the meters chose an access point that was 30 miles (48 km) away!

What’s more is all of this happened completely by design. RPMA’s robustness is built right in, no human intervention necessary. The AP’s battery backup is there for these kind of random power outages. The meters automatically finding APs with the best channel conditions is standard faire, even when there aren’t construction accidents. Channel conditions change and RPMA is set up to deal with that robustly and automatically.

A YouTube video of the retaining wall falling down is viewable up top, so you can see the accident yourself. Ingenu has been supporting private RPMA networks for years. The latter part of 2015, we announced the Machine Network™, the world’s most robust network dedicated exclusively to machines. We recently announced licensing contracts for 25 countries including all of Asia. That means half of the world’s population will be connected using RPMA’s wireless connectivity. And as this event demonstrates, RPMA’s robustness has what it takes to operate in the most challenging conditions.

Download our How RPMA Works white paper to find out what makes RPMA so robust.