Project overview
Project:
Neptune® FirstNet® AT&T Cellular AMI Deployment
Customer:
City of Margate, FL
Products:
- T-10® 5/8" x 3/4"-2" meters
- MACH 10® 3"-8" ultrasonic water meters
- FirstNet Cellular AMI endpoint
- Neptune 360™ Smart Meter Data Management Software
Challenge:
The city faced catastrophic failure of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) meters and meter interface units (MIU) throughout their service area. They needed a new distributor/meter manufacturer partner to help provide accurate water utility bills and restore their customers’ trust.
Solution:
Upgrade the city’s metering infrastructure using Neptune’s powerful, reliable suite of meters and network technology.
Key product advantages
- No AMI fixed-network infrastructure installation, maintenance, operations or upgrade costs for the life of the deployment
- Seamless integrations for a flexible AMI solution
- Access to meter data from anywhere at any time with Neptune 360 software
- Daily consumption reads reporting every 6 hours, broken down into 15-minute increments
- Improved operations and customer service with real-time, high-resolution AMI data and advanced analytics
- Automatic recovery from network outages with 96-day data storage
- Faster reporting and anomaly notifications
- Two-way solution using LTE-M cellular technology maximizes coverage with FirstNet in the U.S. cellular network
- Sensitive information is highly secure
“Ferguson and Neptune’s quick action and attention to our needs are examples of good business practices, demonstrating the solid partnership and commitment we share.” – Marta Reczko, Assistant Utility Director, City of Margate
Background and project scope
Margate, Florida, is part of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area and home to nearly 60,000 residents. The city is known within the metro for offering exceptional quality of life and municipal services—including AMI for enhanced billing accuracy, as well as technical support for utilities.
As the existing AMI aged, billing accuracy waned, resulting in decreased customer satisfaction. Seeking a solution to restore their residents’ faith in their utility authority, the City of Margate consulted the Ferguson Meter & Automation Group.
Method
After reviewing the service area challenges and previous solution/partner issues, the Meter & Automation Group recommended deploying the Neptune FirstNet AT&T Cellular AMI solution for the entire service area. This solution relies on FirstNet, a nationwide communications network with always-on priority across all AT&T spectrum bands for first responders and public safety applications.
Installation contractor National Metering Service deployed 17,000 Neptune T-10 meters and MACH 10 ultrasonic meters with the FirstNet Cellular AMI endpoint. This meter network feeds information into the Neptune 360 meter data management platform to minimize the IT load on the municipal team.
The solution: Ferguson Waterworks
The City of Margate chose Ferguson Waterworks and Neptune as their trusted partners because of our Meter & Automation Group’s extensive expertise, team resources, strong supplier/manufacturer partnership and product reliability.
“Ferguson and Neptune’s quick action and attention to our needs are examples of good business practices, demonstrating the solid partnership and commitment we share,” said Marta Reczko, assistant utility director for the City of Margate.
Learn more about our innovative solutions at ferguson.com/waterworks.