Los Angeles, CA, U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- February 9, 2007 – The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the largest municipal utility in the U.S. with close to 1.5 million customers, will expand its advanced metering infrastructure serving its commercial and industrial customers. LADWP has awarded the contract for this expansion to SmartSynch, a provider of wireless smart meters, who will supply 6,000 such meters to the utility, to operate on AT&T's wireless data network.

LADWP has already purchased 9,000 SmartSynch C&I SmartMeters as part of an earlier deployment initiative completed in 2004. Since implementing SmartSynch's technology, LADWP has seen a reduction in total electricity consumption by more than 5%, resulting in the City of Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission presenting the utility with a Productivity Improvement Award for its role in facilitating efficiency, cost savings, and new revenue development for the city. The additional units will further reduce consumption and allow the utility to better evaluate the technology's performance.

"We selected SmartSynch because they are a proven leader in the industry, and have consistently demonstrated the ability to build advanced technology that is reliable and performs well," said George Chen, AMI Project Manager at LADWP. "From a value standpoint, we like the idea of leveraging AT&T's existing wireless data network infrastructure to meet our advanced metering infrastructure needs."