Why Avista Edge™?

Imagine if, as an electric utility, you could offer your customers inexpensive, secure, high speed, reliable internet as an essential service alongside electricity.

What if your electric utility could also do this and remove all the cable modems and wireless routers from your closet or behind your television?

Now think about having fast, reliable internet service without having to worry about security, firmware or software upgrades.

As part of this turn-key service, your residential or small business customers are equipped with a strong Wi-Fi® network that works independently of the room you’re in—and like their electricity, it just works. Always on when you need it.

Rural America has been left behind in what is widely described as the rural digital divide. Rural communities struggle to find connectivity for telemedicine, online education and technical skills development, vital to today’s modern workforce and economic vitality. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront what was already a growing challenge for our rural communities.

How Avista Edge can help

Avista Edge’s patented, assembled in America customer premise equipment (CPE), along with its industry partnerships, enables electric utilities or local ISPs to offer internet service to their customers as a value-added essential service. By adding functionality to the electric meter, Avista Edge adds new value for electric utility customers. Supporting underserved communities gives local electric utilities an extreme lift in customer satisfaction in the populations they serve by delivering a turnkey, cost-effective, high-speed internet solution, bridging their local digital divide, and all enabled by Avista Edge.

Avista Edge has enabled all of this technology through the electric meter using a simple meter collar that attaches to the meter and is online in less than 10 minutes. Avista Edge combines high-speed fiber with high-speed wireless technology to deliver up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and up to 200Mbps upload speeds today.

This hybrid approach creates a cost structure that shifts a much larger portion of the build out and install cost after the end customer has signed up for service. In addition to the convenience of an electric utility meter solution, the off-the-shelf install is an improvement over custom costs for traditional wireless internet service providers (WISPs) today. Other WISPs require access to power and access to the customer’s home. With Avista Edge, the utility electric meter shop simply attaches the meter collar, i.e. the customer premise equipment (CPE), to the existing electric meter, without any custom construction or installation required.

Avista Edge utilizes safe FCC approved, 5Ghz spectrum that is widely accepted by consumers as it is the same as Wi-Fi® that is found in many public places throughout the U.S. In fact, like AM or FM radio, all radio waves for data communication are at lower frequencies than visible light.

Finally, Avista Edge’s high-speed signal is coupled with the main power line entering the home just over a few feet. With Avista Edge’s technology partnership inside the home with Amazon Eero, the signal is simply picked up at the nearest outlet and securely routed to the remainder of the home via Wi-Fi® mesh or wired Ethernet.

How can an electric utility get Avista Edge?

Our first pilot is underway in 2022, and we’re looking for more electric utilities following this pilot launch. If you are an electric co-op, PUD, municipality or an ISP in search of more high-speed broadband options for your community, and have interest in learning more, contact us.

And there is more!

Not only do we have a turnkey retail ISP solution - but we offer consulting and customized services for all of your smart grid automation and utility private network use cases! After all, we will create a network for your customers, why not use this network technology combined with our resident expertise for your utility needs as well?