This is an interesting research investigation, but it hardly fits into (current) real-world applications of smart metering, at least in the US. In the US, dist

This is an interesting research investigation, but it hardly fits into (current) real-world applications of smart metering, at least in the US. In the US, distribution utilities are capturing usage data in 15-30 minute intervals. Some may go as far as 5-minute interval data. But, even at that level, I would think that the granularity of consumption aggregates way too much load activity to pinpoint individual devices or specific activity on those devices. Maybe someday we'll see metering at 5 second, or smaller, intervals. But, at that point, the only advantage would be specifically to monitor household behavior. Utilities already have more data then they know what to do with. And, if the goal is to identify a household's TV viewing, well, there are better ways to get that data, aren't there? Then, aren't there technical challenges for capturing 5 second intervals? From what I understand (not being an EE or hardware person), the smart grid RF mesh networks are on the 900MHz band, which have limited spectrum and lots of other usage. In my dealings with mesh network vendors, I have gotten the sense that bandwidth is pretty limited.