Analysis of latency for cellular networks for smart grid in suburban area

The goal of this paper is to assess the communication latency of operational cellular networks. Latency plays an important role in time-critical smart grid applications. The motivation behind the work was to use cellular networks as communication technology for wireless M2M communications. The latest 3GPP cellular technology, Long Term Evolution (LTE), is considered to be a promising solution for smart grids as its latency is below 100 ms. Although, latencies of different radio access technologies have been studied in live networks, no 24-hour latency measurements have been performed in the proximity of smart grid entities in suburban area. Therefore, this paper presents the results of a feasibility study of using commercial networks, namely GSM, UMTS, and LTE, in terms of latency, for the remote control of medium voltage electric distribution networks.