Agee, John Terhile.Diovu, Remigius Chidiebere.2020-11-022020-11-0220182018https://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/handle/10413/18748Doctoral Degrees. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.a group of consumers are sufficient for data recipients to perform their duties. Unfortunately, this approach usually relies on cryptographic algorithms which increases the overhead on computations and communication for the network. This often drives the network to a congestive state, thereby resulting in delays which can minimize the task of a cyber-criminal targeting the availability of data in the network. The congestion problem was tackled in this work by designing a robust state-of-the-art communication architecture herein referred to in this thesis as Ring Triangulation Communication Architecture (RTCA). Congestive scenarios in Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) and ZigBee wireless communication technology standards were modeled. The designed architecture was then applied to those networks and its performance was analyzed through extensive simulations. The results of the simulations show that notwithstanding the congestive effects of data aggregation, the designed architecture provides a good QoS guarantee for the two considered networks.enSmart grid.Cloud computing.Cyber threats.Cyber-attacks.Privacy.Metering infrastructure network.Thesis