Water company Nova Veolia, IoT specialist subsidiary Birdz, and Orange Business Services, aim to connect over 3 million intelligent water meters over the next 10 years, with hopes that by 2027 more than 70 per cent of their meters will be read remotely.
The Birdz intelligent water meters will collect data daily, helping clients reduce their energy bills, improve their services and allow customers to visualize and predict their consumption.
The collaboration is based on a common goal; to make IoT available to cities, communities and citizens and to promote the development of connected and intelligent services to better manage resources and energy in cities.
After a 12 month trial period in the city of Toulouse, Orange LoRa network was chosen by Birdz for the smart project, where three million intelligent water meters will form the largest LoRa connected-object deployment of its kind. The low-frequency radio network covers over 30,000 municipalities and 95% of the population of France. It is easy to deploy, consumes little energy and is ideal for intelligent meters which are often located in hard-to-access areas.
Xavier Mathieu, CEO of Birdz, spoke of his decision to elect Orange Business Services for the project citing the company would help make a “strategic shift from a technology requiring deployment of a radio network infrastructure to a solution that is open, interoperable and reversible,” adding that it would also meet the needs of its customers.
Frédéric Van Heems, CEO of Veolia Water France, said the project will “enable the resource management company to propose new services to customers, in line with their expectations for efficiency, interoperability, and transparency”.