Integrated metrology system and information and control apparatus for interaction with integrated metrology systems

A system is disposed at a location of a utility commodity subscriber for informing the subscriber of utility commodity cost and usage and for controlling the usage. The system includes one or more meters for measuring the utility commodity usage and generating usage signals; an information and control apparatus including a microprocessor, a memory, a clock, and a user interface; a first data communication link arranged between the meters and the information and control apparatus and used for providing the usage signals to said information and control apparatus for storage in the memory; and a second data communication link arranged between the information and control apparatus and central locations associated with the utility commodity, and used for providing rate information from the central location to the information and control apparatus. The microprocessor computes an accumulated cost of the utility commodity for a predetermined period of time according to the clock, the usage signals, and the rate infor