AMI is “one-step ahead”
Walking neighborhoods alongside mail carriers, utility meter readers would move from house to house, recording those barely legible numerical values of consumer usage. But Automatic Meter Reading, or AMR, changed everything. Instead of having to walk directly up to the meter, utility personnel need only to walk or drive by using a handheld device that accurately records data.
But Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, uses a wireless, fixed-base meter-to-infrastructure network. Smart meters record consumption in intervals of an hour or less and communicate that information at least daily back to the utility for monitoring and billing. It’s always “one-step ahead.”