Water metering is one of the fastest growing LoRaWAN market segments
Cloud-based software and services platforms provider Senet is partnering up with MeterSYS, a company specializing in advanced smart city and metering technology solutions for public utilities. The collaboration focuses on the deployment of LoRaWAN-enabled networks for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and IoT devices across the United States through the MeterSYS IoT service program SenthiSYS.
LoRaWAN networks are useful in smart city applications because they are designed to allow low-powered devices to communicate with Internet-connected applications over long range wireless connections. Further, LoRaWAN goes a long way in ensuring that the massive number of sensors necessary for a city to be smart remain dependable, sustainable and secure.
The companies will provide utilities and local governments with IoT solutions for a wide range of municipal services including water distribution, sewer collection, storm and flood water management, parking controls, fleet management and energy conservation. The partnership also hopes to simplify the process of purchasing and deploying smart city solutions, allowing public agencies to more easily acquire comprehensive LoRaWAN network planning and installation services.
According to a press release, water metering is one of the fastest growing LoRaWAN market segments, with millions of meters being deployed globally today. This is because water meters do not involve large packets of data. A recent report backs this claim up with the prediction that the demand for smart water metering will experience an exponential growth as smart city initiatives heavily focus on the energy sector.
As city-wide IoT service initiatives gain in popularity, they are in a unique position to partner with utility companies to leverage the expansive and dense networks used for metering. By offering new and unique operating paradigms that support application-centric LoRaWAN network deployment and revenue sharing opportunities for IoT ecosystem members, Senet claimed it is advancing this emerging relationship between the two entities.
Andy Honeycutt, president and chief consulting officer at MeterSYS, commented, “Providing end-to-end AMI and smart city IoT solutions through the Senet and MeterSYS partnership provides utilities and municipalities a single source to fully leverage infrastructure investments, boost efficiencies and accelerate sustainability efforts across a variety of public service operations.”
He added that the flexible deployment options being offered will allow the companies to better “support the unique needs of [their] customers.”
“Forward-thinking cities have come to recognize that to realize the full value of IoT, they must deploy a secure and scalable network that supports multiple solutions and applications,” said Senet CEO Bruce Chatterley. “Connecting municipalities with the robust networks deployed for water metering could mean a huge leap forward in the delivery of many connected city services.”
