South Africa’s smart water metering to be Sigfox 0G enabled

Sigfox SA has been selected as the network to support South Africa’s transition to smart water meters.

Under the award, which was made by tender by the national treasury, existing water meters will be adapted to become smart and all new smart water meters, in total over 15 million, will run on the nationwide Sigfox IoT low power wide area network.

Sigfox 0G is a popular choice for water metering with its low power consumption and range and penetration for devices often installed in challenging environments.

“Water is a basic human right, and we are proud to be associated with provision of such essential services, supporting both revenue collections and provision,” says Greg Rood, CEO of Sigfox South Africa.

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“We expect this to be a catalyst to further grow our local IoT and system integrator ecosystem.”

South Africa’s Sigfox network already covers over 90% of the population and if the need presents itself can be readily densified or extended.

With one reading per day, the Sigfox devices, sealed and waterproof, have a battery lifetime in excess of 10 years.

The smart water metering is intended to enable municipalities to improve revenue collection and service delivery.

It also should improve the accuracy of billing for customers and the management of the increasingly scarce water resources.

Sigfox was launched in South Africa in 2017 and reports having an established track record of supporting large commercial utility deployments in the country.

An early use case was for tracking and monitoring rhinoceroses under threat from poaching.

Sigfox South Africa was founded as Sqwidnet but was rebranded in a restructuring in 2022.