İSTTELKOM

IBB is reviewing a smart meter application in order to overcome the problems experienced in physical meter readings that occur during the COVID-19 outbreak. IBB plans to implement the LoRaWAN application in this context.

IBB is taking steps to read the meters, the importance of which has been understood even more during the epidemic. Smart meters are on the agenda to overcome problems in physical meter reading. IBB has started working on this issue and will establish a LoRaWAN communication infrastructure for smart meters in Istanbul.

The telecommunication infrastructure part of the project, which is planned to be implemented with water and natural gas meters, is carried out by ISTTELKOM, a subsidiary of IBB. This enables meters to be read remotely. IBB has started the LoRaWAN infrastructure installation, which has been preferred with its flexible and secure architecture, in pilot regions and it will be expanded throughout Istanbul after testing.

What is the LoRaWan Infrastructure?

With the Internet of Things (IoT] applications spreading rapidly throughout the world in the last decade, the need to transfer data over long distances with reliable and low power consumption has become important. Recently, there have been significant developments in communication technologies that can counter this need, and wireless communication technologies such as LoRaWAN, Sigfox, NB-IOT are the leading ones.

Thanks to the LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) communication system, which is preferred for its effective features for enabling data that constitute ‘Smart Cities’ to communicate with each other, service in many areas such as smart lighting, irrigation, park management, water, energy and natural gas meter reading / opening-closing operations will be available.

Thanks to smart meter systems, which are at the top of service application areas, mechanical meter reading and the billing system will be eliminated while erroneous reading and related disputes will also be terminated. Since operations such as meter reading, opening, closing will be done remotely, field labor costs will be minimized which will contribute to the country’s economy. The system can also be used to turn off gas valves in earthquake and similar disaster situations.