Control system
First Claim
1. A system for controlling the supply of electric power to customers of a utility supply company comprising providing a data center through which the utility supply company can make changes thereto, by causing the data center to generate control messages when a change in customer requirements is required, transferring said control messages to a paging network provider to cause said messages to be transmitted to a paging receiver contained within a remote controller at the customer'"'"'s premises, said messages when received by said controller being effective to cause the controller to effect a function contained in the message.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
In a system for remotely controlling the supply of electric power to customer premises, each customer premises is fitted with a power-switching arrangement coupled to a paging receiver (5-1, 5-2, 5-3). A utility company supplying the electric power can input requests to a server (1), optionally via a terminal (2) or a network link (3). A software application running on the server generates a control instruction in response to a request and sends it to a paging service (4) for transmission over a paging network. When a paging message is received at one of said customer-premises paging receivers, if the control instruction is appropriately addressed the power-switching arrangement will put it into effect, for example to connect or reconnect the customer premises power supply.
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Citations
10 Claims
- 1. A system for controlling the supply of electric power to customers of a utility supply company comprising providing a data center through which the utility supply company can make changes thereto, by causing the data center to generate control messages when a change in customer requirements is required, transferring said control messages to a paging network provider to cause said messages to be transmitted to a paging receiver contained within a remote controller at the customer'"'"'s premises, said messages when received by said controller being effective to cause the controller to effect a function contained in the message.
- 5. A message structure for sending commands to a remote controller, the message structure comprising a first set of ASCII check sum characters, followed by a second set of ASCII sub address characters, and third set of ASCII command message characters.
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10. A method for remotely controlling the supply of electric power to customer premises, comprising the steps of;
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providing a control computer;
sending instructions to the control computer to generate control instructions;
transmitting said control instructions from said control computer via a paging service; and
receiving and acting on said control instructions at a customer-premises power-switching arrangement coupled to a paging receiver.
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Specification