Natural gas pipeline companies have customers on both ends of the pipeline – the producers and processors that input gas into the pipeline, and the consumers and local distribution companies that take gas out of the pipeline. In order to manage the natural gas that enters the pipeline, and to ensure that all customers receive timely delivery of their portion of this gas, sophisticated control systems are required to monitor the gas as it travels through all sections of what could be a very lengthy pipeline network. To accomplish this task of monitoring and controlling the natural gas that is traveling through the pipeline, centralized gas control stations that collect, assimilate, and manage data received from monitoring and compressor stations are placed all along the pipe