Tackling water utilities' biggest challenges with rugged mobile technology

Access to clean drinking water is essential, and something many Americans might take for granted. Behind the scenes, ensuring this access is anything but routine. Aging infrastructure, a stretched thin workforce, cyber threats, environmental concerns, and public health issues bring challenges that water utilities must mitigate to provide clean, affordable, reliable, and uninterrupted service to customers throughout the country.

Each year, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases a report card for America’s infrastructure. The 2025 report card gives America’s drinking water infrastructure a C-, further emphasizing that our current systems are aging, underfunded, and in need of help. Now, with an increase in extreme weather such as droughts, floods, and severe storms, water utilities are struggling to maintain water quality and minimize reactive infrastructure repairs. And water utilities must continuously monitor water quality to ensure they meet the safe drinking water standards outlined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

To overcome these obstacles and ensure the best and safest service for customers, water utility companies are turning toward technology for assistance. One example lies in rugged, connected, and secure mobile solutions, which continue to gain traction as the industry increases efforts to digitize. These purpose-built laptops and tablets, which are designed with water utilities in mind, provide water operation crews with the tools and real-time visibility they need to enhance efficiency, keep operations running smoothly, do routine maintenance, and get water systems repaired when damage occurs.

Here’s a look at how rugged mobile technology helps water utilities tackle some of the industry’s most pressing challenges.

Ensuring reliable connectivity across the country

It can be difficult for water utilities to maintain infrastructure in rural locations, but with 24.4% of the U.S. population living in rural areas, it cannot be overlooked. Rural communities can obtain assistance and financing needed to develop drinking water systems through Rural Utilities Service Water and Environmental Programs (WEP), which helps utilities operating in these areas secure more funding for necessary infrastructure improvements and projects.

Field crews working on a burst pipe in a remote location may need to access back office or online data when making a repair. Consumer-grade laptops or tablets aren’t as reliable in this situation and aren’t built to handle the connectivity, environmental, or weather demands required at the point of installation or repair. Advanced rugged mobile technology is built with multiple connectivity options to ensure service even in the most remote locations. With support for 4G, 5G, and other industry-specific private LTE networks, rugged laptops and tablets keep field ops connected to each other, the central office, and IoT devices used to monitor assets such as meters, pipes, and pumps. Advanced connectivity capabilities ensure less dropped connection, and that high-quality images and videos of the damage can be shared quickly to elicit swift action – without delaying outcomes.

Beyond providing support in remote locations, reliable connectivity also ensures all workers have live access to data and metrics across their water service areas. This real-time visibility makes it possible for predictive and proactive maintenance, which is a core part of strengthening the current water infrastructure. Instead of fixing problems after they’ve occurred, workers can identify vulnerable sites and act before they escalate into larger problems that impact customers. This level of proactivity saves utilities on time, money, and resources – and lets them focus attention on the situations that are the most urgent without waiting for disaster to strike. Workers – while on call – can take a bit more control of their day and prioritize work accordingly.

Enhancing end-to-end security measures

A 2024 report found that 97 drinking water systems serving 26.6 million users had critical or high-risk cybersecurity vulnerabilities. That’s 26.6 million Americans who are at risk of their drinking water being negatively impacted by bad faith actors. 26.6 million people who rely on their water providers to keep them safe.

Water utilities are modernizing to become more effective and efficient. This means becoming more connected and – in many cases – leveraging digital end points to make certain tasks like meter reading easier. This means that they also require robust security measures to help protect against cyber threats and keep operations running optimally. As with many businesses and enterprises, this requires a robust cybersecurity ecosystem comprised of both hardware and software – along with best practices and education.

On a hardware level, rugged mobile solutions are equipped with advanced security features like encryption capabilities and tamper-proof components. Expansion packs offer fingerprint and smartcard readers that can authenticate user access to ensure sensitive information is kept secure. This is important for the physical layer of protection workers need in remote areas. From a software perspective, cybersecurity software helps water utility companies monitor the health and safety of firmware on endpoint devices, such as laptops, tablets, sensors, and meters. The combination of hardware and software protection is imperative to protect water utility assets and end users. Workers can be confident that information is protected wherever the workday takes them.

Keeping operations running smoothly and increasing productivity amid workforce challenges

To add to the complexities facing the water utilities industry, its workforce is undergoing a significant shift, with the majority of open positions needing to be filled over the next decade. With this comes the challenge of recruiting, training, and retaining technicians so that the communities these water utilities serve don’t feel the effects of a thinly stretched workforce. Utility workers and companies are in a tricky position – and doing what they can to capture knowledge from a retiring workforce, give current workers tools to be more productive, and try to usher in a new generation of digital natives that are used to leveraging technology to support their workday. It is one of many industries in the United States grappling with this dynamic.

Rugged mobile laptops and tablets are an essential tool in minimizing the effects of these challenges, providing many benefits that help water utility workers streamline operations and maximize uptime. Built to handle extreme environments (from ice cold to more than 100 degrees), these devices can accompany workers operating anytime, anywhere. Technicians working in the field need devices that streamline their workflows, not complicate them. With screens that are visible in direct sunlight, options for hot swappable batteries, customizable expansion packs that help workers tailor the device to fit their specific needs, and the ability to withstand drops, dust, and water, these devices keep workers productive whenever they need it most.

Plus, as utilities look to digitize and automate manual tasks to help workers accomplish more in less time, rugged mobile solutions ensure no breaks in that chain. By acting as a reliable and connected central hub for everything a water utility worker needs, rugged laptops and tablets allow workers to access work orders, GIS information, infrastructure status, repair history, and real-time data from one device, simplifying workflows and enabling workers to make informed decisions. And, backed by enterprise-grade devices, services, and support, water utility workers and businesses can be confident that systems are reliable without the additional headaches that come with broken or malfunctioning technology.

Building a better water utility system for the future

Water utilities that embrace advanced technology solutions can provide better service to their customers and reduce stress on the already strained workforce. As a part of water utility modernization, rugged mobile laptops and tablets are essential tools in empowering workers and businesses to keep our water utility systems resilient and secure.