PLANO, TX, March 26, 2008 -- The town of Belleair, Fla., has completed a successful pilot program of Datamatic's advanced MOSAIC Automated Meter Reading system for its municipal water utility. During the evaluation program, the AMR system provided data from MOSAIC class FIREFLY® Meter Interface Units that had been installed on a group of the town's meters. Datamatic has been a leading utility technology partner since 1980 and supports 500 customers worldwide.
"Every utility faces unique challenges based on its specific geography, population density and climate,' said Rich Sanders, Datamatic Director of Business Development. "Datamatic's MOSAIC advanced AMR solution is a technologically superior business solution that can overcome most any obstacle and help utilities better manage their resources. MOSAIC was designed to be evolutionary so a utility can move from handheld collection to a fully automated system along a seamless, affordable path."
The picturesque community of Belleair lies on the Gulf Coast of Florida, which means frequent periods of severe weather can slow data collection using the current handheld system. In addition, Florida's ongoing drought has made water conservation even more important to the community.
"The town's leadership wanted to leverage 21st century technology for the benefit of its citizens," stated David Brown, Superintendent of the Belleair Water Department. "Our MOSAIC pilot program proved that the AMR system can help accomplish our goals of improving conservation efforts and decreasing the resources required to collect data, without the enormous expense of a traditional fixed network."
MOSAIC can read water, gas and electric meters via handheld, mobile and full mesh network collection platforms using MOSAIC-class FIREFLY MIUs. The system forms its "mesh" by linking each FF to its neighbors via two-way, spread-spectrum radio.
Datamatic's ProfilePLUS£ datalogging capability was another key reason that Belleair selected MOSAIC. Each FIREFLY MIU stores hourly usage data that can be reviewed using ProfilePLUS. This data is invaluable for settling customer usage disputes, leak detection and system optimization.
"Water conservation is a growing concern in our community and MOSAIC will allow us to educate consumers on their usage," added Brown. "Our customer service team will have recent data at their fingertips and individual consumers can even see the facts via the Internet. This valuable information will make consumers more aware of their consumption and give them the confidence that their meter reads are accurate."
Now that the pilot program has been successfully completed, Belleair municipal water utility executives and the town council are evaluating next steps in deployment of the system.
Datamatic is a leader in utility data collection solutions for water, gas and electric utilities.
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