Cellular-Based Technology Offers AMI Without The Investment

The processes of moving to an (AMI) automated metering infrastructure system can be daunting. Usually it requires investing time, money, and resources to conduct propagation studies and install and test equipment. But with cellular-based meter-reading everything is already in place for an AMI network.

“The best infrastructure – wireless infrastructure – in almost every utility across the country is already in place, and that's the Verizon Wireless infrastructure,” explains Mike Giarrantano, the sales manager with Metron Farnier and Transparent Technologies in his interview with Water Online Radio. “We went out and we talked to Verizon. We brought them in, and we have some very intelligent engineers that were able to basically install, instead of an RF chip in the Innov8 Register, a cell phone modem.”

The Innov8 universal digital register is compatible with standard displacement, multi-jet, turbine, and compound water meters. It can be universally retrofitted to most meters, explains Giarrantano in the interview with Water Online.

It features data logging every 5 minutes. This is a big advantage, explains Giarrantano.

 “With the five-minute interval information, you are seeing essentially true information as to what's happening in real life on both low-flow type of leaks and high-flow peak situations,” he says.

To hear more about what Giarrantano has to say about AMI, click the link below for the full Water Online Radio interview.