Landis+Gyr, Telia Company partner to boost energy metering smartness

Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) is a new technology designed for the Internet of Things. With great coverage and long battery life, it’s a perfect match for smart energy metering, something that Telia Company and Landis+Gyr will explore within a new partnership.

The two companies have signed an NB-IoT connectivity framework agreement for smart metering data transfer in the Nordic and Baltic countries. The aim is cost efficient, robust data transfer from smart energy meters into utility business systems and a new innovation platform for the energy sector.

Running on the 4G/LTE mobile network, NB-IoT is a new communication technology that enables excellent coverage indoors, outdoors and in the ground. It is ideal for things that run on battery and send low amounts of data at regular intervals.

NB-IoT allows for devices to be installed and connected in places that previously lacked coverage or were difficult to maintain regularly, such as far below ground or in the mountains. Applied to the energy sector, this means cost efficient, reliable, robust data transfer from smart energy meters to utility systems.

A perfect match

Traditionally, smart energy meters send small amounts of data in a configurable time interval to a gateway or a hub, from where the data is transferred to a server where it becomes accessible. With NB-IoT, smart meters can communicate directly with the cloud, without the need of a gateway or hub, lowering both system complexity and costs while increasing flexibility.

Smart metering is a perfect match for NB-IoT, as the low power consumption guarantees a maintenance-free, future-proof operation for many years. Smart electricity meters can be reliably connected even deep indoors and the expected overall cost per device is very low, whilst low data rates are acceptable.

Telia Company’s NB-IoT network covers all of the Nordic countries already today, for example in Finland, the geographical coverage is currently 56 percent and population coverage is 95 percent. In Sweden, coverage exceeds 99.9 percent of Sweden's population and over 95 percent of Sweden's surface.

In line with its high internal standards for quality and security, Landis+Gyr's first NB-IoT communicating smart devices will be introduced to the market in early 2019 after the ongoing solution integration and field testing phase.

Sami Kurunsaari, CEO of Landis+Gyr Nordics welcomes the collaboration with Telia and highlights its significant advances for utility customers in the Nordics, now preparing to take the next generation Smart Metering technology in use.

“We’re convinced that together with Telia, a leading telecom operator in the Nordics market, we’re able to provide our customers with communication solutions that not only meet the needs of cost efficiency and security, but also allow innovative, new use cases in the future,” he says.

“I’m really happy to welcome Landis+Gyr to the largest NB-IoT network in the Nordics. The partnership provides us with insight into the energy sector, and we see significant potential also for new services using NB-IoT. Together with Landis+Gyr, we want to help utilities to make the most out of their smart energy data,” says Björn Hansen, Head of Enterprise and Public IoT, Telia Company Division X.