Yep - and have you ever seen a meter reader do your house? 60...

Yep - and have you ever seen a meter reader do your house? 60 reads/hour seems pretty feasible from what I've seen.

And I think you'll find that there is an ongoing cost with remote reading (data communication costs, system maintenance etc).

But, even if there wasn't, it still isn't cheaper. Say, very conservatively, that it there's an extra $100 one-off capital cost for the "smart" hardware. To recover that only by offsetting the existing cost to read meters it would take 25 years ($100/$4 per year). The hardware/technology won't last 25 years.