Toowoomba council taps Optus for smart water meters

Queensland’s Toowoomba Regional Council has awarded an Optus-led consortium a contract to deploy 68,000 smart water meters to help the council manage its water network more efficiently and better detect water wastage.

The deployment will leverage Optus’s NB-IoT network, as well as blockchain-powered IoT devices from IOTA, a user experience platform from GreenBe and installation services from ETS Deployment Services.

Once deployed, residents will be able to use the new system to set water usage targets and monitor their consumption in real time, according to Toowoomba Regional Council councillor Rebecca Vonhoff.

“The benefit for residents, is that if there’s a leak somewhere in their system, they’re going to know about that much sooner than they would have previously,” she said.

“It’s also really good for residents because just day-to-day, they're going to have a lot more understanding about how their water usage habits actually play out with how much water they are using.”

The project is the first advanced metering infrastructure contract to be awarded by a telco-led consortium.

Image credit: iStock.com/NatalyaBurova