CMC Ekocon was chosen to deploy Coronis wireless technology solutions in the first large-scale automatic metering (AMR) network in Eastern Europe.
Coronis products are distributed in South Africa by Trinity Telecomms. The installation is the first of its type to offer such a high level of automated data collection and remote network monitoring services. Network deployment will take place over three years, leveraging the flexibility of Wavenis solutions to be used for walk-by meter reading with handheld terminals in the short term, while offering a smooth, cost-effective transition to entirely automated fixed network operation over time.
Industry challenge
There are approximately 30 000 water meters in the seaside Slovenian cities of Koper, Izola, and Piran. Koper Water Works, the municipal water utility, needed to better manage its resources and retrieve meter consumption data from the field faster. It was also interested in improving service to water customers by being able to detect leaks and other anomalies, as well as provide accurate billing even when meters are not directly accessible by utility staff.
Wavenis wireless solution
A battery-powered wireless transceiver is connected to each water meter, enabling value-added services, the storage of large amounts of meter data, and responding to data and administration requests from handheld terminals or a remote server. The system allows meters to avoid serious problems by spontaneously sending alerts over a wireless connection in case of anomalies such as leaks, backflow, vandalism, and low batteries.
The fixed network uses GSM-SMS concentrators to handle groups of up to 2000 water meters each. Depending on the landscape, Wavenis-enabled range extenders are installed to ensure that 100% of the nodes in each cluster are covered at the lowest cost. A middleware application running on the utility operator's server handles 2-way end-to-end communications throughout the entire network - to each endpoint and intermediary node - from a central location.
Amongst other things, this project shows how the Eastern European market is ready to use technology innovations to provide new added value services for automatic meter reading. By choosing Wavenis-based products, with their high realtime accuracy, CMC Ekocon improves the precision and efficiency of its systems while enhancing service to customers. The new meter reading systems provides the utility company with more regular and timeous reading of all residential customer meters.
"The innovative and field-proven Coronis solution is making it possible for CMC to deploy the first large scale AMR network in Eastern Europe with total confidence and cost-effectiveness for both mobile and fixed network applications. With references like this, CMC becomes the Central and East European leader in this very promising market," commented Oliver Macnic, CEO of CMC Ekocon.
| Tel: | +27 11 465 7377 |
| Email: | [email protected] |
| www: | www.trinity.co.za |
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