How does electric meter function?

I would like to give you an answer this question but, more information is needed. Is this about your meter readings being sent over the phone/cable connection? In all my years in the business I have never heard of a "remote electricity meter". There are wired and wireless means for monitoring electrical meters. The wireless kind use a coded radio transponder to answer a query from the reader in a passing vehicle, and send a digitized reading. The wired kind operate with communication codes right across the power lines using relatively high frequencies. In 2005 there were over 25 million Italian homes providing remote readings for centralized monitoring of electric consumption. Standards are also being developed for "intelligent" appliances that can be centrally controlled, and for transmission of internet data using power lines. Some of this technology is based on patents from the 1960s and 1970s for communicating digital information across power lines. E.g., Haberly, 1970 (filed 1966), USP 3,509,537.