ATLANTA -- Mueller and Ferguson Waterworks have announced the successful deployment of the industry’s first LoRaWAN® Class B endpoints. The Town of Florence located in Central Pinal County, Ariz., is the first water utility to benefit from this technology advancement. LoRaWAN Class B endpoints provide flexibility to scale network coverage and integrate into remote disconnect meters (RDM), leak detection and pressure monitoring systems – unlocking greater network efficiency and improving data granularity.
“The deployment of smart meters is accelerating our journey toward digital transformation and the foundation required to build out our smart city grid,” said Brent Billingsley, Town Manager of the Town of Florence. “We are confident that this open source network will provide new operational efficiencies, enhanced service opportunities and additional revenue streams.”
Delivered by Mueller Systems, the Mi.Net® node, implemented with LoRaWAN Class B specifications, is a bi-directional endpoint capable of transmitting secure data to and from a network server within seconds, as opposed to hours with a Class A endpoint. At this unprecedented speed of communication, on-demand reads can be commanded and delivered without delay, providing real-time data to customer service and operations to identify and resolve outages quicker than before.
“It is encouraging to see more cities and water utilities like the Town of Florence at the forefront of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) revolution,” said Kenji Takeuchi, Senior Vice President, Technology Solutions at Mueller. “We understand that municipalities are facing challenges on many fronts. Our technology solutions can help drive a better focus on utility spending and return on investment, while helping them operate more efficiently.”
By deploying Mi.Net® LoRaWAN Class B endpoints, the Town of Florence can simply pair them with Mueller Systems’ model 420 RDM to allow water meters to be turned on or off without the need for truck rolls.
Each LoRa-based endpoint maintains the data in its non-volatile onboard memory and communicates with the Mueller Mi.Net® Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. This helps to ensure water utilities are protected against any single point of failure. Alerts such as leak detection, no flow, low flow, and register tampering are monitored 24/7 by the Mueller Network Operations Center to provide an added layer of security.
