In the era of Internet of everything, Chinese urban gas has been pushed to the center of stage of the global public utility digital transformation. The narrowband Internet of things technology, LoRa, with its outstanding characteristics such as security mechanism, high availability, lightweight, flexible deployment, wide and deep coverage, mass connection, micro power consumption, low cost, and easy to operate, is especially suitable for meter reading, pipe network monitoring etc. for urban gas companies.

At the end of 2016, Goldcard established joint venture company “Guizhou Zhongan IoT network service company” in collaboration with Guizhou Gas Group, ZTE and other well-known enterprises. The JV has been positioned to provide narrowband IoT infrastructure access, and network and data operation services. At the initial phase, it mainly provides remote meter reading services for Guizhou Gas.

At present, the JV has built secondary LoraWAN network covering the whole province and more than 20 cities. With 1000 gateways deployed, and over 200,000 LoRaWAN smart gas meters online now, there will be another 100,000 LoRaWAN smart gas meters installed soon. The average meter reading rate exceeded 98%, and the meter reading data has been sent back to the gas company every day, which supports the daily gas consumption monitoring, meter reading and billing of Guizhou Gas, all in good operation condition.

Guiyang LoraWAN gateway deployment and gas meter reading network 

Meanwhile, taking usage of network access capability, the JV has continuously expanded innovative application scenarios horizontally. At present, we have completed the gas pipe network detection, centralized meter reading of water, electricity and gas meters, remote monitoring of agriculture and fishery, real time geological disasters monitoring and warning, and achieved good performance and demonstration.

The JV provides water quality, water level and flow monitoring for a river