JPH0730673A - Public utility rates collection system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide the system for collecting public utility rates by automatically reading an integration meter corresponding to the instruction of a satellite signal and reporting the result through a telephone line to the side of a service presenter. CONSTITUTION:A transmission side 2 as a host side composed of a host computer and a transmitter and plural receivers 3 owned by subscribers are connected by a satellite line 1 and a telephone line 4, the digital integrator to count the amount of used public service such as electricity, gas or tap water is provided inside each receiver, a storage device is provided to store the used amount as use data, and with a control signal transmitted from the transmission side 2 as the satellite signal as timing, the use data stored in the storage device are up-loaded from each receiver 3 through the telephone line 4 to the transmission side 2. Timing to give access to the transmission side 2 by each receiver 3 is decided by a delay processing means set by delay time width different from respective receivers 3.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for efficiently collecting charges for public services represented by electricity, gas and water by using satellite communication and telephone lines.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, two-way communication has been attracting attention for the purpose of carrying out communication using a telephone line or a satellite as a medium for transmitting information and further providing various and high value-added services. Now that the demand for information is changing from uniform to individual, bidirectional communication enables, for example, the subscriber to indicate the information individually required, and the service provider can use the individual information accordingly. It is possible to make a request communication to provide. In this way, the service provider manages the subscriber individually while providing the information service that meets the needs of the subscriber.

By the way, as a piece of information that requires individual management of subscribers, there is a service charge. This service is limited to public services such as electricity, gas, and water, and the method of collecting the fees is described. First, a subscriber's house has an integrating meter that measures the amount of service used. The subscriber pays the utility bill corresponding to the usage amount.
That is, the service provider has adopted a method of periodically reading the meter of each subscriber, obtaining the difference from the previous meter reading result, and charging each subscriber a fee corresponding to the difference. Here, the meter reading of the integrating meter is performed by a worker visiting each subscriber.

[0004]

As described above, at present, all information can be exchanged at high speed and accurately by means of electric communication means. At present, in the collection of usage charges for public services, an integrating meter which is the basis for calculating the charges is used. The service providers must secure a large number of personnel because they rely entirely on human labor for meter reading. Therefore, there is a problem that it takes time and labor to read the meter, the labor cost accompanying it becomes enormous, the public charge is increased, and the subscriber side is also economically burdened.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and automatically performs meter reading of an integrating meter, which is the basis of charge calculation, by an instruction of a satellite signal, and uses the result of the meter reading through a telephone line. Report to the service provider side,
The purpose is to disclose a system for collecting utility charges.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention has a transmitting side which is a host side composed of a host computer and a transmitter, and a plurality of receiving devices which a subscriber has, a satellite line and a telephone. The receivers are connected by a line, and a digital totalizer for measuring the usage of any one or more of public services represented by electricity, gas, and water is provided in each of the receiving devices, and Each receiver has a storage device that stores the amount as usage data, and each receiver uploads the usage data stored in the storage device to the sender via the telephone line, triggered by the control signal transmitted as a satellite signal by the sender. The timing at which each receiving device accesses the transmitting side is set to a different delay time width for each receiving device. With means of determining the extension processing unit.

[0007]

The transmitting side and each subscriber communicate with each other through the satellite line and the telephone line, and the receiving device held by each subscriber receives the satellite signal from the host side and processes it. The control signal transmitted using satellite communication is an instruction as a trigger to read the usage data stored in the storage device in the receiving device, and the read usage data is sent by the telephone line via the communication modem or the like. Uploaded to the host side. In this case, the delay processing means provided in each receiving device has a function of controlling the traffic of the telephone line on the transmitting side and a function of avoiding inaccessibility due to the line busy. That is, by executing the upload according to the access timing set to the delay time different depending on each receiving device, the subscriber line on the transmitting side can be efficiently used.

[0008]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the entire system of the present invention. In the figure, 1 is a communication satellite, 2 is a transmitting side, 3 is a receiving device, 4 is a telephone line, 5 is a telephone line network, and 2 is a transmitting side. And the receiving device 3 can communicate with each other through the telephone line 4. As shown in FIG. 2, the transmission side 2 is mainly composed of a host computer 6, a data table 7, a transmitter 8 and an antenna 9. Then, the transmitting side 2 transmits a control signal for controlling the receiving device 3 using the communication satellite 1. Here, the control signal in the present invention essentially means a command for uploading the utilization data accumulated in the receiving device 3 to the transmitting side 2. The control signal in this case is not particularly characterized by the signal form, but it is preferable to transmit it as a digital signal when the number of subscribers is large.

Next, the internal structure of the receiver 3 will be described with reference to FIG. In the figure, 10 is a receiving antenna, 11 is a tuner for receiving satellite signals, and is a device for receiving a control signal transmitted from the transmitting side 2. In addition, tuner 1
1 is technically the same in this system even if it can receive not only control signals, so-called character strings, but also signals such as music and images in general. 1
2 is a reception data processing unit such as a buffer memory,
This block performs basic processing such as temporarily saving the data processed by the tuner 11, processing the data string of each signal used in communication such as headers and footers, and extracting only the necessary information. Reference numeral 13 is a digital integrator that measures the amount of use of public services, that is, the amount of electricity for electricity, the volume of gas for gas, and the volume of water for water supply. The amount of use is counted in digital form as usage data. It 14 is a C for controlling the entire receiving device 3
It is PU. The usage data counted by the digital integrator 13 is stored in the RAM 1 which is a storage device via the CPU 14.
Accumulated in 5. 16 is a modem for data communication, R
The usage data stored in the AM 15 is transmitted to the transmission side 2 by the telephone line 4 via the modem 16.

When the control signal periodically transmitted from the transmitting side 2 as described above is received, the usage data stored in the RAM 15 which is an internal block of the receiving device 3 is encoded with the telephone number of the subscriber. In addition to this, this data is output from the data communication modem 16 and transmitted to the transmission side 2 via the telephone line 4. Here, since the wireless communication is generally broadcast, the control signal transmitted from the transmitting side 2 is simultaneously received by all the subscribers by the satellite communication. However, since many receiving devices 3 ... 3 are actually connected to the transmitting side 2 by telephone lines, when all the subscribers simultaneously access the transmitting side 2 when transmitting data to the transmitting side 2, the line is busy. There is a possibility that the traffic will become extremely bad and the traffic will become extremely bad. As a means to avoid it,
Although it is possible to allocate a dedicated line or a specific frequency to each subscriber, it is uneconomical and almost impossible to achieve when a large number of subscribers are targeted. In the present embodiment, in consideration of such a point, each of the receiving terminals 3 has the delay processing means 17 having a different time width. Each of the time widths is defined as a unit of time during which the receiving terminal 3 accesses the transmitting side 2 through the telephone line and uploads the usage data, and then the line is disconnected. Increase the delay width. As a result, the line busy can be avoided even when the sender 2 is called. Since the transmitting side 2 normally has a plurality of lines, the receiving devices are grouped according to the number of lines, and delay processing is performed within each group. As the delay processing means, means for outputting the data output from the CPU 14 to the modem via the delay buffer, or the CPU 1
Although a plurality of means are conceivable, such as a means for changing the arithmetic expression for calculating the internal clock No. 4, any one may be adopted.

After the usage data is transmitted to the transmitting side 2 as described above, the individual telephone number is identified and the usage fee is calculated for each receiving device 3. A unit price for each service is set as a data table 7 inside the transmitting side 2, and if data is input, the data table 7 is collated to calculate the total amount. After the usage fee is calculated in this manner, each subscriber will be billed by an appropriate means.

In the present embodiment, one type of public charge was explained, but it is assumed that the digital integrator 13 can process a plurality of charges in parallel. By designating the type, it is possible to upload arbitrary usage data to the transmitting side, and the transmitting side can also function as a utility rate management system.

[0013]

According to the present invention, the meter reading timing of the integrating meter, which is the basis of the utility bill calculation, is performed under the control of the satellite signal.
Since we decided to transmit the meter reading result to the host side using the telephone line while considering the traffic, the subscriber side can accurately and rationally use the public charge without changing the conventional public charge payment method. Was able to be collected, and it was possible to establish an effective utility bill collection system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the entire system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a transmitting side.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a receiving device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 communication satellite 2 transmitting side 3 receiving device 4 telephone line 5 telephone line network 6 host computer 7 data table 8 transmitter 9 antenna 10 receiving antenna 11 tuner 12 received data processing unit 13 digital accumulator 14 CPU 15 RAM 16 data communication modem 17 Delay processing means

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A transmitting side, which is a host side composed of a host computer and a transmitter, and a plurality of receiving devices owned by a subscriber are connected by a satellite line and a telephone line, and an electric power is provided in each of the receiving devices. In addition to providing a digital totalizer that measures the usage of any one or more of public services typified by gas and water,
Each receiving device has a storage device that stores the above-mentioned usage amount as usage data, and each receiving device uses the control signal transmitted as a satellite signal as a trigger to send the usage data accumulated in the above-mentioned storage device through a telephone line. A public utility charge collection system, characterized in that the delay processing means set to different delay time widths for each receiving device determines the timing at which each receiving device accesses the transmitting side.