Netmore to Hook Up Yorkshire Water Meters to LoRaWAN Wireless Network
Global network operator Netmore has signed a contract with Yorkshire Water in England that aims to upgrade and connect 1.3 million water meters across the Yorkshire region (i.e. those that are reaching the end of their operation life) to their Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN).
Fixed wireless LoRa networks harness only a small slice of lower frequency radio spectrum (usually in one of the sub-1GHz bands like 868MHz or 915MHz) in order to support relatively slow, but extremely low power, data connections over a wide coverage area. Such networks tend to run at sub-Megabit speeds (often under 0.05Mbps, but some variants can handle several Megabits), which makes them ideal for linking Internet of Things (IoT) style sensors.
The new Netmore contract, which is still subject to Ofwat’s final determination (due in December 2024), will run for an initial term of 5 years, plus data services for the meters installed up to 2045 (this includes the delivery, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of connected smart meters).
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This new program will run concurrently with smart meter deployments that began in 2022 when Netmore was awarded AMI frameworks by Yorkshire Water for the delivery of LoRaWAN network services and provisioning of meters for up to 360k households, including new developments and Domestic Metered Optants.
Adam Smith, Manager of Smart Networks and Metering Transformation, YWS, said:
“The initial smart metering program with Netmore launched in 2022 has helped Yorkshire Water deliver the first 500,000 litres of leakage reduction, by identifying water leakage on customers pipes. It has also helped us to better understand water demand patterns in our initial 25,000 Netmore smart meters and target water efficiency activity, all while delivering both operational value and the long-term perspective needed for the expansion of our [advanced meter infrastructure] initiatives.
Following a rigorous evaluation process and procurement analysis, we are confident in the choice of Netmore and its partners for our meter exchange program, as they collectively have the ability to help us deliver our ambitious goals and success criteria related to leakage, water efficiency, customer experience, and operational carbon emissions.”
Morrison Water Services, under contract with Netmore, will now plan, schedule and work with household and non-household customers to deliver the exchange of the meter. The program is expected to begin in South Yorkshire in 2025.
Broadband ISP Connexin has separately won a number of similar contracts to hook up water meters in various regions to their own LoRA wireless network, one of which is also Yorkshire Water.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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More smart meters, so glad Welsh Water is not going to do that, as far as I know.
They say it is to tell them of leaks, I would know if I had a leak as my meter is indoors.
It is so they don’t have to send people around to read the things, not that anyone comes to my place, they email me to read it myself.
Yes, they’ll save money on manual readings. But once they’re all connected then the readings from all those meters can also be pooled, processed and used to detect leaks outside of your home too by monitoring for areas of abnormal consumption.
@Mark, you may be right, the problem is will they fix the leaks once they know about them? If they are anything like Welsh Water and Thames water for that matter, then they won’t, or it will take weeks.
I think all people should have Water meters, pay for what you use, not have a fixed rate, it makes some people waste water if they are paying a fixed rate, when you pay for what you use you think differently about using water. I don’t like the idea of smart meters.
As I said, glad Welsh Water is not looking at them, as far as I know anyway. My Water meter does the job, I read it every 6 months and send the reading online and it works fine. My only issue is I wish I could give the reading more often, like every month like i do with my energy meters.
The problem is, it is another thing to go wrong and if these water meters end up having the sort of problems that Energy smart meters have, then it will be money wasted.
I know they work on a different system., but it is still more to go wrong.
DCWW are due to start rolling them out from 2025. (https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-water-meters-drought-climate-26412321). They have signed an agreement with Itron to utilitse their Temetra cloud-based mobile meter management solution. (https://greentechlead.com/water/dwr-cymru-welsh-water-to-deploy-itrons-meter-management-solution-37264).
Leaks can lead to subsoil being washed away, causing damage to roads etc. so the quicker they are detected, the better.
@JAH, that first article is over a year old, I have heard nothing about any smart meters, also according to that article they are only going to put them in places that don’t already have meters, I already have one
in the second link it says, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water will use the Itron’s solution to efficiently read its 750,000 meters across the country of Wales in the United Kingdom. I don’t live in Wales.
We will see if it happens even in Wales, as some people have said, the meters need to be waterproof as some of them are underwater.
Our water meter is under the public footpath and is prone to filling up with water during winter months, that will have to be a robust network to work through that, not that this is going to affect us. We’re with Thames Water and you would think they have more pressing concerns right now.
Oh great, let’s hope they make less of a mess of it than they did when they last replaced our street’s water meters so they could read them by driving a van down the road.
In my case the meter was already capable, they failed to notify me when they changed the meter and then sent me a crazy bill as they’d misread the meter when they swapped it. I simply asked them to retrieve the meter from the warehouse / check the photographs of the old meter, which Yorkshire Water couldn’t do so they had a bit of a panic to workout what to do as it was clear they’d got the reading very wrong!
I’m often bemused by your articles about LoRaWAN. You make it sound like it’s some kind of really slow Internet connection, which it isn’t. Your description of it as sub-megabit or less than 0.05Mbit, is an order of magnitude faster than the actual data rates!
If you were sending the biggest possible packets (223bytes), and you have a good connection so you can achieve the most efficient data rate, you can send 1 packet every 37 seconds. That is an average data rate of 48bits/s, or 1000x slower than 0.05Mb/s. There is 1 “high bandwidth” channel where you could theoretically achieve 96bits/s.
Of course a lot of the meters are below ground level under a metal lid, so they might end up sending data at the slowest rate, which can send 52bytes every 5 minutes, or 1.4bits/s. It would be interesting to know how well it actually works.
Also 915MHz isn’t used for LoRa in the UK and Europe. The EU868 frequency plan utilises frequencies between 863-870MHz
My brother lives in London (not Thames Water) and sent his cheque for payment due. The cheque was returned with the message that he would be charged using a meter in the future. He does not have a meter, but receives letters saying he has not paid! He has contacted them by phone and explained, but the farce continues.
Using lorawwan for smartmeters doesn’t work in uk where so many watermeters are underground. Unless you have a gateway on each and every street, this will never scale.
Maybe if you mesh smartmeters with NBIOt there’s basically no way it can work as a realistic business. 868mHz is full or noise so the range and reliability in this case will be down to 200-300 m at at the lowest data rate.. which can’t be used because then the smartmeter battery life will be too short.
A year ago, Netmore installed a small 12V power supply in the loft to power a communications unit, along with a modest 3-foot antenna connected to the house. Since then, the system has been running smoothly with no need for intervention. I’ve even received payments for hosting the equipment, which operates independently and efficiently. It’s been a simple and effective way to contribute to communications infrastructure while earning a passive income.