There has been a strong undercurrent in our interviews over the last few months, where advocates argue that cellular connectivity is now a viable approach to smart metering, instead of the old way of doing it with proprietary RF protocols, legacy cellular connections, and a good smattering of Wi-SUN. Now with national smart metering programs potentially slowing down, it seems that a door might have opened for these advocates, into a very lucrative market. The conventional thinking in the industry is that cellular has been too power hungry for gas and water metering, and that public networks should not be relied upon for mission critical applications – meaning that proper connected/smart grid applications were off the table entirely. Now, of…