BONN -- Deutsche Telekom is equipping a new housing development area with the infrastructure for intelligent gas and electricity meters for Stadtwerke Emden (Emden Municipal Utilities). Over the next few weeks, the municipal utilities will install around 200 smart meters in Emden-Wolthusen. Deutsche Telekom will provide the data connection, install a communications box in the 100 households and transmit the data via DSL to the municipal utilities. The latter will in the future provide its customers with their current usage on a secure Internet portal.

Deutsche Telekom's communications box is normally located in the building connection room and collects the consumption data of the meters connected to it. The municipal utilities query the power consumption every 15 minutes and the gas consumption every hour. Here the utility company only pays a monthly fixed price for transmitting the data. Deutsche Telekom bears the cost of investment in the communication infrastructure and is responsible for ensuring the operation thereof. For the end customer, this service is free of charge during the pilot phase.

"We compared several providers and decided on Deutsche Telekom because we could receive the entire service from a single source", says Remmer Edzards, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Emden. "We are now conducting a customer survey to assess the general interest in this new technology. Initial results from discussions apparently show that a large number of electricity and gas customers want to know how they can actively reduce their energy consumption using intelligent meters." If this assessment is confirmed, Stadtwerke Emden also plan to install smart meters in other residential areas.

Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT)