Smart Meters need Smart Antennas

For most utility companies, meters are still checked manually by a person walking house-to-house, reading meters. But as technology develops, utility providers are finding that there are more efficient ways to monitor meters.

One pioneering American company called Mueller Systems provide utility companies and municipalities with innovative metering solutions to improve the delivery and use of water and energy. The Mueller Infrastructure Network, Mi.Net®, is a modern communications network that fully automates the meter-reading-to-billing process. This scalable network can be implemented in stages as budgets allow.

But they had a problem that needed fixing. Mueller Systems were in need of a high-performance, robust, 900MHz Omni-directional antenna to support their wireless metering system. The antenna need to fully integrate into the Mi.Net® system, but it also needed to withstand the hostile environments and have enough gain and coverage to support Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) and mobile applications.

They found the solution by using L-com’s 800/900 MHz HGV-906U Omni-directional antenna. This antenna has all of the capabilities needed by Mueller Systems, including superior all-weather performance. L-com’s high-performance, low-loss coaxial cables were also used to connect the antenna to the Mi.Net® repeaters.

With the help of L-com’s antenna and cables, Mueller Systems is now able to offer their customers a complete wireless monitoring system that reduces cost, increases efficiency, conserves resources and keeps customers happy.

To read the entire case study, click here.