Turin-based water company working with Olivetti on using NB-IoT to digital transform the utility’s operations
Italian company Olivetti, which manufacturers a range of electronic devices, and Turin’s water company SMAT have deployed narrowband internet of things (NB-IoT) cellular technology for measuring water consumption and optimizing management of water supply networks.
The two firms said this new deployment is a key step in the process of digital transformation of the entire water sector.
The first meters equipped with the technology send measurements automatically over live NB-IoT networks that are already in operation in Turin.
The two firms, in collaboration with Huawei, will also connect water meters that are difficult to reach with current mobile radio technologies.
The new partnership between Olivetti and SMAT allows pooling of capabilities to apply NB-IoT technology in the water field, and creates synergies for optimizing the new IT platforms and new operating processes to achieve consumption monitoring in real-time.
Olivetti and SMAT are currently analyzing the performance of NB-IoT connectivity under normal operating conditions, assessing instrumentation, processes and operation in the field.
“As far as concerns technological innovation, a part of the development activities at our Research Center is aimed at optimization of the intelligent systems, providing them with the capacity to provide information in real-time to the advanced remote control station, monitor the rate of water fed into the networks and produce an estimate of water demands for the following hours,” SMAT’s managing director Paolo Romano said. “The collaboration with Olivetti, therefore, constitutes a further building block in the development of these activities, having as an offshoot an improvement in the service provided to users”.
“The new NB-IoT technology, working side-by-side with the many wireless technologies already used in cellular and capillary fields, will soon provide coverage at national level; as a result, our customers will be able to bring IoT services more rapidly onto the market, certain of the reliability of the networks and platforms supplied by the TIM Group and Olivetti,” Mario Polosa, Olivetti IoT Marketing Manager, said.
