Over three million water meters will be connected to Orange’s LoRa network in France, after a subsidiary division of French water company Veolia appointed the telecoms provider to help digitise its water-related services in the country.
The deal is between Orange’s enterprise arm Orange Business Services and internet-of-things (IoT) outfit Birdz, a subsidiary of Veolia’s digital services business Nova Veolia, formed out of the merger of Homerider Systems and m2ocity.
The goal is to read more than 70 per cent of Veolia meters remotely by 2027. The decision follows a 12-month trial of low-frequency LoRa for remote monitoring in Toulouse, and to visualise water consumption and detect water leaks and instances of fraud.
Birdz will also rely on Orange Business Services’ Live Objects data management platform to collect data from the meters.
Frédéric Van Heems, chief executive of Veolia Water France, said: “It is a true growth driver that will allow us to optimise our methods and performance, and also to propose new services to our customers, in line with their expectations for efficiency, interoperability, and transparency.”
Xavier Mathieu, chief executive of Birdz, said: “Birdz has chosen Orange Business Services to help it make a strategic shift from a technology requiring deployment of a radio network infrastructure to a solution that is open, interoperable and reversible and also a solution which meets the needs of our customers.”
Helmut Reisinger, chief executive of Orange Business Services, said: “Our multi-technology strategy, which includes LoRa, 2G, 3G,4G, and LTE-M, allows us to meet each sector’s specific needs. Already a leader in France, our goal is to become the IoT leader in Europe, and more broadly, to strengthen our position as an operator-integrator worldwide.”
Birdz collects data from smart water meters to help local communities, manufacturers, third parties and retail customers reduce energy bills and improve services.
Orange’s LoRa network covers over 30,000 municipalities and 95 per cent of the population of Metropolitan France, it claims. Orange Business Services claims over 2,000 IoT and 1,300 cybersecurity staff.
