Meeting on February 23

All,

Since California's Permanent Standards Working Group (PSWG) is meeting on
February 24, 25, and 26, I am scheduling the next MDMA Users Group meeting
on February 23, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at CellNet's offices in San Carlos.
The PSWG subcommittee on MDMA issues meets on February 24 in SF from 1:30
to 5:00 p.m.

The distinction between the MUG and the PSWG is that the MUG is focused on
implementation in 1998 and dealing with immediate issues, mostly technical,
such as VEE clarification. The PSWG is focused on recommending any
potential changes to the CPUC relative to MDMA standards included in
D.97-12-048 and other Direct Access decisions. Such changes would take
effect in 1999, presumably.

The agenda for 2/23 is as follows (please feel free to suggest any additions):

1. Monthly VEE standards (PG&E will present its proposal)
2. Proposed modifications to California Meter Exchange Protocol (add a flag
for closing meter reads; see SCE proposal below)
3. Ability of MDMAs to read non-interval meters for 20-50 kW customers in 1998
4. Discussion of VEE issues; potential resolution
5. Auditing of MDMAs-Discuss Proposal for Data Quality and Integrity Workshop
6. Customer reads as back-up to automated systems 
7. Common formats for universally-used identifiers: service node, meter,
customer, UDC, ESP, MDMA, and MSP.

The meeting will be in the conference room at 125 Shoreway Road, in
CellNet's headquarters complex. Please let me know if you need directions.
Also, please send me any feedback on SCE's proposal below, or directly to
Larry Colwell at colwella@sce.com.

Thanks!

Chris

=====================

SCE Proposal:

Chris,

Per my discussion with you at the Joint UDC MDMA meeting, this is a
follow up note to discuss the possibility of adding some additional
fields in the DATA field in the MEPMD01 / MEPMD02 format.  I would
appreciate it if you could forward this to the rest of the MDMA users
group to get their feeling and feedback about the following proposal.

My proposal which has been discussed and agreed to by representatives of
each of the UDCs is to ADD a "F" field.  This would be used in the
transmitting of data to indicate a FINAL READ.  Additionally, ADD an "O"
field to indicate OPENING Read.

Both of these fields would add value in further defining the type of
data when customers sign on for Direct Access, switch ESPs, or return to
bundled service.

Would appreciate any feedback you can provide.

Larry Colwell
SCE
MDMA Project Manager






Chris S. King
Vice President, CellNet Data Systems, Inc.
.