SIP Forum Births Smart Grid Special Interest Group

The SIP Forum has formed a new Smart Grid Special Interest Group (SIG) with the focus of evaluating the appropriateness of using SIP as a protocol for a number of Smart Grid areas, including the Home Area Network (HAN), Utilities' Operational Network, and PEV (Plug-In Vehicle) deployments.

The Smart Grid is the modernization of the electricity grid using communication technology with the primary goals of reducing energy consumption, reducing cost (for utilities and consumers), increasing reliability and creating new services for all participants in the value chain.

While the current focus is on electricity, similar concepts can be applied to other utility systems such as water, gas, etc. Such a modernization has recently become a significant focus for governments, vendor communities (utility companies and partners) as well as Industry/Standardization organizations such as NIST, GridWise, IPSO, the IETF and IEEE.

The Smart Grid architecture requires a “communications overlay network” which can help facilitate “intelligent communication” (discovery, session establishment, routing, addressing to name a few) among various nodes of the heterogeneous Smart Grid network.

Several of the standards bodies and organizations mentioned above are working toward identifying standards and protocols that meet the goal of a robust, secure and interoperable Smart Grid network.

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