Infrax Systems Inc (IFXY)

[1971]

More about ITRON and Infrax:

Infrax Systems Executes Technical Development Agreement With Smart Meter Manufacturer, Itron, Inc.

Revolutionary "Under the Glass" Solution to Be Available First for Centron Meters From Itron

ST. PETERSBURG, FL--(Marketwire - November 23, 2010) - Infrax Systems, Inc., (OTCBB: IFXY), a global provider of unified Smart Grid-related products and services for the Energy and Utility industries, announced today that it has entered into a Technical Information License Agreement with Itron, Inc, one of the largest smart grid meter manufacturers globally. At the conclusion of the qualification testing process, Infrax will have the ability to license the communications module to Itron, as well as sell the product as Itron compliant.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Infrax-Systems-Executes-Technical-Development-Agreement-With-Smart-Meter-Manufacturer-1358126.htm

The Infrax SNIC (Secure Network Interface Card) is the big key in all of this.

Infrax entered into a Technical Information License Agreement with Itron Inc, http://www.itron.com/ , one of the largest smart grid meter manufacturers globally. At the conclusion of the qualification testing process, Infrax will have the ability to license the communications module to Itron, as well as sell the product as Itron compliant. The License Agreement grants Infrax the right to design their Secure Network Interface Card and communications module for inclusion in Itron Centron meters. Itron has also provided Infrax with development tools and technical documentation to aid in this development.

SNIC
Secure Network Interface Card (SNIC) addresses the Advanced Metering Infrastructure requirements of the electric utilities worldwide by providing secure two way communications between meter and control center of the energy company. Although the initial launch addresses the US market, the basic design also will support the requirements of electric utilities globally. The military grade encryption based on trusted platform module and patented authentication mechanism provides one of the highest levels of meter security available today. The universal host interface board is equipped with two wireless modules – one for home area networking and the other for wide area networking. The WAN module utilizes a standards based communication protocol which is extremely reliable and deterministic in nature. The smart meter card is the first of several products to be developed as part of Infrax's Secure Intelligent Energy Platform (SIEP).


What this means - Sam Talari Explains:

"Some info that might be useful in considering the market size for Smart Meters globally. One important piece of the Smart Meter is the communications module that fits under the glass and sends/receives data from and to the meter (Infrax is building the same communications module but with a built in security). I will use our competitors data, not considering the security piece that we are developing;

Silver Springs Networks

They started developing their NIC (Network Interface Card) or the communications module for the smart meters around 4 years ago. After completion of their NIC, they did a license deal with GE to embed the Silver Springs communications or NIC card into all the Smart Meters sold by GE exclusively. GE’s cost of the NIC that they pay to Silver Springs (estimated) is around $25 a piece, but they charge their customers around $35. But GE does not sell directly to the utilities (in most cases) since the module needs to be configured and be part of a last mile communications build out. So the average Smart Meter cost including all the pieces is around $240/meter (depending on number of meters). So for 1M smart Meters, the revenue would be around $250M for a company like Silver Springs or us for that matter. Silver Springs currently has a revenue pipe line of around 10M meters or $2.2B (estimated).

There are close to 200M electric meters in USA, not including gas or water meters, that needs to be changed to Smart Meters . There are a total of 2.5B electric meters worldwide (not including gas, water) that needs to be changed to Smart Meters. Total meters including gas and water globally is estimated to be around 5B. So do the math."

GO IFXY!!!