MILWAUKEE, MARCH 15, 2019 — Badger Meter, Inc. announced that it will provide a full suite of smart water technologies and services to the City of Columbia, South Carolina to assist the city’s vision to lead the way in innovative and high quality municipal services. The fully integrated solution will improve the city’s efficiency and reduce water loss by providing real-time access to detailed water usage data, enhancing customer service and empowering their nearly 150,000 customers to better manage their water usage.
The city selected Badger Meter’s BEACON® Advanced Metering Analytics (AMA) Software-as-a-Service offering that collects and analyzes data within the water distribution network to improve operational efficiency and awareness. When matched with our ORION® Cellular endpoints and industry-leading Recordall® water meters, the city will have an intuitive, cloud-based software suite that allows greater visibility and control and provides a powerful end-to-end solution. It will also take advantage of the extended longevity and support of infrastructure-free cellular networks, which are driving cellular as the AMI system of choice for water utilities. The ORION® Cellular endpoints selected by the city will utilize the newest LTE-M network. The LTE-M network is dedicated to machine-to-machine (M2M) devices deployed as part of a smart water solution and is fully compatible with current LTE and 5G network technology.
The first installations are expected to begin in Columbia this spring, with a three-year anticipated project timeline for full roll-out.
“We are pleased to provide this comprehensive smart water solution to the City of Columbia,” said Kimberly Stoll, Vice President – Sales and Marketing at Badger Meter. “Mayor Benjamin, who leads the U.S. Conference of Mayors, has been innovative in his approach to smart water for his growing city. We were able to demonstrate how leveraging the power of infrastructure-free data utilizing the ORION® LTE-M cellular solution would meet their high expectations for an efficient, effective and responsive solution.”
Columbia’s Mayor, Steve Benjamin, stated, “We’re excited as a city to not only improve the quality of service we provide to our residents but also to improve the efficiency and accuracy with which we deliver those services. Columbia is one of many cities across our nation implementing smart city measures that allow us to become the city we desire to be.”