Criteria for Recommending Standards
In evaluating Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) standards to be recommended to the State of California, the Permanent Standards Working Group will use the following criteria:

Safety - Recommended standards should be consistent with the highest standards for worker, consumer, and public safety during installation, operation, and maintenance.
Accuracy - Recommended standards should support the required accuracy of data for settlement, billing, consumer needs, and required utility operations.
Reliability - Recommended standards should support the required reliability for data for settlement, billing, consumer needs, and required utility operations.
Secure - If requested by a system user, the standards will assure the privacy, integrity, and authenticity of data transmission.  
Open Architecture - The standards should be open interface standards, which means that they have been developed and agreed upon in an open process, are sanctioned by an accredited standards body, are vendor-neutral, and are readily available..
Distributed Intelligence - The standard will allow the "intelligence", processing capability, or storage of data to be placed on either side of the interface.
Bi-Directionality - The standard will allow information to flow in either or both directions where desired.
Efficiency - For a given capability, the standard will impose minimal costs in terms of length of data stream, processing requirements, communication requirements, storage requirements, translation requirements, operating cost, and equipment cost.
Future Expandability - The standard will not foreclose options to add new capabilities to the system.
Specify Services or Interfaces - The standards will specify only the minimal set of services that must be provided by a system and or the interfaces between system components.
Self-Consistent - The standards or suites of standards will be consistent with each other to allow information to flow throughout the entire system.
Integrated - The automatic meter reading system standards should be selected to facilitate the exchange of information between the AMR system and any other systems operated by the utility, customer, or energy provider.
Enable Efficient Operations - The standards will not foreclose the options for utilities, consumers, or other interested parties to operate their systems efficiently.

Special Terms:
Authenticity - It is verified that the sender is the individual or device that it claims to be.
Integrity - The data is unaltered between the sender and receiver.
Open Architecture - Open Architecture (OA) is an environment where the specifications for interfaces, services , protocols and data formats are vendor neutral, published, freely available and are agreed upon in an open process, under the auspices of a recognized national or international standards body (e.g., IEEE, ANSI, ISO, IEC or ITU).
Privacy - Only the authorized sender and receiver can read the data.
Suite of Standards - A suite of standards is a set of standards that apply to different interfaces in the system, but which must be used together for successful operation.