But the top-down approach may have surprising advantages: in the establishment of the necessary standards to ensure that things can talk to things; in the construction of smart public infrastructure; and in the introduction of toll roads and other forms of metering.
Barely two years after abandoning the experiment of putting their most popular columnists behind a pay wall, executives of the New York Times have talked openly of trying again some different way: perhaps "metering" how long people spend on the site and charging a fee to those who stay beyond their free welcome.
With certain camera flash combinations OTF metering inside the camera can control the flash duration by suitable contacts made when the flash is attached to the camera.
And things like smart metering, in particular, can provide them with tangible benefits".
It also includes a lot of schemes sometimes called "smart management" – using remotely controlled speed and diversion signs, ramp metering, and rapid response traffic management officers on patrol, to keep traffic at an ideal flow rate, open hardshoulder lanes to vehicles if necessary, and clear blockages as quickly as possible.
"The amount of data that a large corporate user can get from its estate is significant," says Marc Borrett, CEO of Reactive Technologies, "especially if you go down to minute-by-minute metering.
If spectrum is priced efficiently in an increasingly dynamic wireless world, the necessary overhead in network management and metering is likely to be quite costly.
Italy (surprisingly, perhaps) is a pioneer, at least in smart metering.
Within this market, there are three different strata of technologies, known as "stacks".The first stack is called "advanced metering infrastructure", or AMI.
An alternative "interconnector", bypassing Gazprom's metering station, has been proposed, and priced at just €20m.
For domestic and industrial consumers, it requires metering and a charge based on consumption by volume.
