Smart gas metering as an IoT business case: lessons learned Massimo Cesaro CTO MeterLinq

The Context By year 2018, in Italy ~18 million gas meters will be replaces by smart meters The majority of battery powered smart meters will communicate through a 169 MHz RF interface In 2013, MeterLinq was founded to provide the gas market with a solution to this problem In December, 2014 MeterLinq was tasked with creating a smart metering infrastructure in Southern Italy by AMGAS Bari

AMGAS at a glance pdr (gas delivery points) 700 Km of gas networks user derivations 2 City Gates (PRMS) 70 GRF – 120 GRU 81 employees A.M.GAS S.p.A.: Municipal company founded in Operates in gas distribution services in the City of Bari: 3

From M2M to IoT MeterLinq idea: gas smart metering as a compelling business case for IoT Not Just for AMGAS, but a generic infrastructure Using gas smart metering regulatory pressure to introduce an IoT network service The steps: Find an IoT enabling technology Adapt gas metering to IoT Deploy! 4

IoT Enabling Technology The communication infrastructure requirements  Bi-directional (OTA firmware updates, clock sync)  Deep coverage  High availability and resilience  Intrinsic security  Low power  Low maintenance overhead  Reusable by different services 5

Adapting Gas Metering MHz MeterLinq Gateway 2G/3G Radio Mobile Link IP Network Internet MeterNet AP 6

From M2M... Gas Meters MHz) Gateways – Data Concentrators M2M platform SAC – 3rd party applications 2G/3G/4G Mobile or Wireline Network → TCP/IP Network (PP3) 7

Gas Meters MHz) Water, Parking, CHP, Lighting, other sensors To IIoT Gateways – Data Concentrators RPMA MeterNet ® platform / NOC SAC – 3rd party applications 2G/3G/4G Mobile or Wireline Network → TCP/IP Network (PP3) 8

RPMA Deployment

The results The initial roll-out was completed in record time, less than 2 months, with 600 smart meters from 3 different vendors AMGAS is billing 1,000 customers since May 2015 and will support ~15,000 smart meters by the end of 2016 The deep RPMA coverage will be used to implement other smart city services (water, lighting, parking) MeterLinq chose to build an ecosystem and extend the Bari model nation-wide

The RPMA Ecosystem EBB Ecosystem Building Block Gas smart metering Water smart metering Public Lighting Water and Geo monitors Agricolture Air Quality Remote Control Parking Road Safety IoT Network access Develoment API Open source software Open source hardware

Nation-wide roll-out Initial coverage to 5 Italian regions Puglia, Lazio, Emilia Romagna, Veneto Lombardie Including major cities such as Torino, Genova Reach out ~6 millions people Covered area: ~1.500 Km 2 Roll-out in 18 months

Conclusions Lessons learned – Leverage on regulatory pressure: use a mandatory service to introduce IoT – Plan for multi-service networks – Trust only proven technology – Partner expertise is a critical factor – Build an affordable ecosystem – Define a simple business model 13

Thank you!