The Challenge
A municipal water utility in central Kansas serves approximately 8,400 residential and commercial customers across a service territory covering 140 square miles — a mix of a small city core, outlying residential areas, and rural service connections.
The utility had operated walk-by AMR for 12 years. Monthly meter reads were conducted by a two-person crew on a 3-week cycle — walking each meter route, collecting readings on handheld units, uploading to the billing system. The process consumed approximately 200 staff hours per month and provided one data point per meter per billing cycle.
Between billing cycles, the utility had no visibility into:
- Customer consumption patterns or anomalies
- Distribution system losses occurring between the water treatment plant and customer meters
- Service line leaks at customer properties (discovered only when customers received anomalous bills)
The utility’s annual non-revenue water (NRW) report — water produced versus water billed — showed a persistent 18–22% NRW rate. At the utility’s production volume of approximately 2.1 million gallons per day, that represented 380,000–460,000 gallons of unaccounted-for water daily — treated, pumped, and pressurized, but never generating revenue.
The utility director and operations team identified three goals for the AMI upgrade:
- Eliminate the manual meter reading cost (200 staff hours per month)
- Identify and reduce non-revenue water losses
- Provide customers with consumption data to support their own leak detection
Why LoRaWAN for a Rural Kansas Service Territory
The utility evaluated three AMI technologies before selecting LoRaWAN:
Fixed-network radio (900 MHz mesh): Popular in urban and suburban utilities. Gateway infrastructure cost is manageable in dense deployments. In the utility’s 140-square-mile territory with relatively low meter density in outlying areas, the infrastructure cost per meter was prohibitive.
Cellular NB-IoT: Good coverage in the urban core. Significant coverage gaps in the outlying rural portions of the service territory. Per-device monthly costs at the utility’s 8,400-meter scale would represent $8,400–$25,000 per month in ongoing airtime.
LoRaWAN: Coverage economics for a rural territory are compelling — each gateway covers 10–15 km in flat Kansas terrain. After coverage modeling, 6 gateways mounted on existing elevated infrastructure (water towers and grain elevators with landlord agreements) were projected to cover the entire service territory. No per-device airtime costs.
IoT SimpleLink was selected as the LoRaWAN network management layer, with VX-Olympus receiving and managing the meter data.
The Deployment
Network Infrastructure
Six LoRaWAN gateways deployed over 3 weeks:
- 3 gateways on water tower structures (utility-owned) — highest elevation points in the territory
- 2 gateways on grain elevator structures (negotiated access agreements with elevator operators)
- 1 gateway on the water treatment plant roof
Coverage validation after gateway installation: 97.3% of meter locations achieved RSSI above -115 dBm — sufficient for Class A LoRaWAN operation at SF10–SF11. The 2.7% of meters with marginal coverage were identified, and 18 of them were resolved by adjusting gateway antenna orientation. The remaining 10 meters at the outer edge of coverage were addressed with external antenna adapters on the meter endpoints.
All 6 gateways were provisioned and monitored through IoT SimpleLink.
Meter Deployment
The utility replaced 8,400 meters over a 9-month deployment schedule. Meter replacement was handled by utility crews and a contracted meter installation firm:
- Residential meters (3/4" and 1"): replaced at an average of 45 per day
- Commercial meters (1.5" and 2"): replaced at an average of 12 per day
- Large commercial and industrial meters (3" and above): 28 accounts total, replaced individually with coordinated shutdowns
The replacement meters were LoRaWAN-enabled AMI meters with Class A radio modules. Each meter reported consumption every 15 minutes via OTAA-authenticated LoRaWAN uplinks to IoT SimpleLink, which forwarded readings to VX-Olympus.
VX-Olympus Configuration
- Each meter record in VX-Olympus mapped to a customer account (integrated with billing system)
- Alert thresholds configured per customer class:
- Residential: alert when 15-minute consumption exceeds 150% of the customer’s 30-day average at the same time of day
- Commercial: alert when hourly consumption exceeds 200% of the customer’s 30-day baseline
- Night flow analysis configured: aggregate consumption in DMA zones during 2–4 AM window, flag zones where minimum night flow exceeds the expected baseline
The Results
First 60 Days: Three Distribution Leaks Identified
Night flow analysis in the first 60 days identified three distribution leaks in 60 days, covering zones with non-revenue water loss exceeding target thresholds:
Zone 4 (residential subdivision): Minimum night flow in the 2–4 AM window was 42 GPM against an expected baseline of 18–22 GPM. Field crews deployed acoustic leak detection equipment in Zone 4 and located a 6-inch main joint failure that had been leaking an estimated 24 GPM (approximately 34,560 gallons per day). The joint was repaired; Zone 4 night flow normalized to 19 GPM within 24 hours of repair.
Zone 8 (commercial district): Night flow analysis detected 31 GPM minimum night flow against a 12–15 GPM expected baseline. Investigation located a service line failure at a commercial property — a 1.5-inch service line that had experienced a joint separation underground. The property owner was notified and the line repaired.
Zone 2 (mixed residential/commercial): Smaller NRW signal — 8 GPM above baseline. Acoustic leak survey located a corroded 2-inch main section that was repaired during scheduled maintenance the following month.
Combined, the three leaks were losing an estimated 38,500 gallons per day. Annual water loss recovered: approximately 14 million gallons.
Customer Service Line Leaks: 47 High-Consumption Alerts
In the first year of continuous monitoring, VX-Olympus generated 47 customer high-consumption alerts — cases where consumption significantly exceeded the customer’s historical baseline.
Investigation follow-up revealed:
- 29 alerts: Confirmed customer service line leaks or internal plumbing leaks. Customers were notified within 24 hours of the alert. 26 repaired their leaks within 2 weeks. Average consumption anomaly duration before detection: 4 hours. Without continuous monitoring, average detection time would have been approximately 30 days (next billing cycle read).
- 11 alerts: Irrigation system failures or hose connections left open — resolved by customers without plumbing service
- 7 alerts: Legitimate high-use events (swimming pool fills, construction water use) — no action required
Customers who caught leaks early avoided receiving anomalous water bills. High-bill complaints dropped 34% in the first year.
Billing Dispute Resolution
Before continuous monitoring, billing disputes required manual investigation with only monthly meter read data. The average resolution time was 23 days.
With 15-minute interval data available in VX-Olympus, billing disputes resolve in an average of 2.3 days. The utility’s customer service staff can pull the specific customer’s consumption history at 15-minute granularity, identify exactly when the anomaly started, how long it ran, and at what rate — answering customer questions with data instead of with estimates.
Meter Reading Labor Elimination
The 200 staff hours per month previously devoted to walk-by AMR meter reading were eliminated. One of the two meter reading positions was eliminated through attrition (the incumbent retired 4 months after deployment). The other position was converted to a meter service and maintenance role.
Network Performance
12 months post-deployment:
- Average meter read success rate: 99.2% (meters reporting at least once per hour)
- Gateway uptime: 99.6% aggregate across all 6 gateways
- Coverage stable: No meter locations lost coverage after initial deployment; one gateway antenna reorientation in month 7 improved coverage on one outlying route
IoT SimpleLink’s gateway monitoring identified a gateway power supply degradation in month 9 — the system flagged reduced uplink packet success rate before the gateway failed. The power supply was replaced during a scheduled maintenance visit before an outage occurred.
Lessons Learned
Coverage testing before meter deployment: The coverage validation step after gateway installation — before beginning meter replacement — was critical. Identifying the 10 meters requiring antenna adapters before deployment avoided costly return visits.
Customer communication: The utility sent letters to all customers explaining the new metering system, the ability to view consumption data, and the high-consumption alert program. Customer reception was positive — customers who later received high-consumption alerts appreciated the early warning rather than a high bill.
Billing system integration: The VX-Olympus-to-billing-system integration required 3 weeks of IT coordination with the billing software vendor. This integration should be scoped and contracted before meter deployment begins — not after.
Conclusion
The Kansas municipal utility’s LoRaWAN water metering deployment delivered against all three stated goals: manual meter reading cost was eliminated, NRW was reduced from 19.4% to 11.2%, and customers received consumption alerts that helped them identify leaks before receiving anomalous bills.
The infrastructure investment — 6 gateways at approximately $250 each plus installation — was a total of under $5,000. The first leak found paid for the entire gateway infrastructure in the first month of operation.
For a mid-size rural utility, LoRaWAN AMI is the economics-first choice. The coverage math works. The airtime economics work. And the operational benefits — NRW visibility, customer service efficiency, distribution system insight — represent genuine operational value beyond simple meter reading automation.
Talk to our team about a LoRaWAN water metering deployment for your utility.