Georgia Power

Merger planning is touchy business. In a hotel crowded with utility executives gathered together to talk mergers, you notice everything: Who's there and who isn't. Who's talking to whom. Who came with his lawyers. And who's always out in the hall on the phone.

That's why I had so much fun last month at the Eighth Annual Utility M&A Symposium, sponsored by EXNET (Public Utilities Reports and The Management Exchange).

By the end of 1996, the 400,000 urban customers of Kansas City Power & Light Co. (KCPL) will enter a new age of technology.

A real-time wireless network will bounce readings from small transmitters installed in the existing meters of every home and business in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area back to computers at the utility's customer services office.