Bell Canada, Capgemini and HP Smart meters

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Bell Canada, Capgemini and HP announced that they are collaborating to offer Smart Meter solutions that will help Ontario become a leading adopter of the technology and electricity conservation measures. Smart Meters are designed to help customers make informed decisions about their electricity use when combined with a differential pricing structure that is intended to reflect the true cost of power production at certain times of the day and year. The technology is designed to help Ontario consumers to
reduce overall consumption levels and reduce the strain on the power system at peak times.

Smart metering solutions will provide meter reading capabilities, advanced billing capabilities, outage notification and will link meters to other conservation and electricity demand management programs that are intended to help the Ontario Provincial Government achieve its goal of managing demand of electricity in Ontario, making more efficient use of the current electricity supply and potentially reducing the province's reliance on external sources.

The three companies stand ready to bring the strengths of their local and global companies to help Ontario achieve the goals announced by the Ontario Government, to meet electricity conservation and smart meter installation goals. This includes building the infrastructure to support the installation of 800,000 smart meters by 2007 and in all Ontario homes and businesses by 2010. In delivering next generation communications platforms, Bell Canada is a leader in network design and in the implementation and management of security storage and hosting solutions in Canada. Capgemini is a leading systems integrator and service provider to the North American electricity sector and
European gas sector. HP has been working with Canadian utility companies for over 15 years and is a leading provider of technology infrastructure and related services to the world's utilities, with 65 per cent of electric power transmission control systems running on its computers.