Last month, we discussed why scalability in water management systems is becoming so important, and will only become more so in the future. We also touched on how our Subeca AMIoT System® addresses and fits into that reality. Now we’d like to explore how Subeca AMIoT adds agility and value by supporting the types of moves agencies are having to make right now to stay viable, as the water landscape changes at warp speed.

Just as water agencies and municipalities are being forced to do and show more in terms of transparency, they are also being asked to become more team players, to contribute more to “earning their keep.”

We are currently engaged in a pilot program with a forward-thinking water agency in south Orange County. One of the first things they inquired about was how a non-proprietary LoRa network operates, and potential scalability leveraged on its existence as the AMI network of choice. They have discussed with one of the cities they serve how they might sell that municipality some bandwidth to allow them to bring in some Smart City digital functionalities, such as parking, lighting, irrigation, or whatever they might need.

A non-proprietary LoRa network does indeed form a digital backbone that will allow such intra-agency or intra-municipality opportunities for all parties to leap forward into the world of IoT advances and mutual success. Municipalities gain the ability to move into the 21st century with their infrastructure capabilities, while water purveyors find new ways to close the gap of lost revenue resulting from implementation of state conservation regulations—truly a leap forward in agility and value.

Unlike the restricted revenue from water rates and fees, this type of revenue is unrestricted. Agencies can use the revenue from excess bandwidth sales to stabilize rates, implement new initiatives that improve the lives of their customers, or even purchase LoRa-enabled IoT devices that reduce operating costs and increase agency systems intelligence. This makes it a true win-win situation. Best of all, this source is limited only by the imaginations of management, since your LoRa network is open and extensible at the discretion of your agency.

What kind of agility and value will you realize with the addition of a new source of unrestricted revenue, whose installation costs can be written off as a capital improvement, while addressing your own infrastructure management challenges?