Utility investment in smart metering networks surged a decade ago as American utilities looked to save meter reading costs, improve grid reliability, and take advantage of funding made available under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Today, many early advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) networks are aging out and utilities are evaluating upgrade paths and new networking protocols. Low power wide area (LPWA) networking solutions are now available, with attractive cost and technical characteristics uniquely suited to support utility smart meter networks.
This Guidehouse Insights webinar provides an overview of emerging LPWA network protocols and discusses the technical aspects of four solutions as they relate to smart metering: LoRa, NB-IoT, LTE-Cat-M1, and Weightless. The technical specifications of these solutions will be discussed, as will case studies of projects where LPWA technology has been deployed as the backbone for smart metering networks.