AMR Development Trend in China¡¯s Water Sectors(continued)
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| Comparing the various communication technologies, wired meter reading is a mature technology, which offers high reliability but there are some disadvantages such as cabling in old houses and its maintenance. Meter reading by PLC also offers some benefits as it uses existing electricity cables but disadvantages do exist such as the
problems of the noises and interferences from the power networks. That is also the
reason that PLC technology is not maturely applied in the Chinese market. |
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| Comparatively wireless communication (RF) has more advantages over the other types. But there are also some limitations such as the regulation that the 433MHz frequency used does not allow the output capacity to exceed 10mW, the disturbance in data transmission due to the existence of blocks and blind zones in the high rise buildings which result in low communication stability and reliability, the problems of electromagnetic pollution as well as the battery life time. |
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| Therefore Chinese water utilities still have a lot of concerns about the quality, maturity of the various technologies and price of remote transmission meters. |
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Future development trend |
| Even concerns exist on the remote transmission meters, the market demand of remote transmission meters is growing very fast. From our research, we are aware that
water utilities including real estate constructors are very willing to install remote
transmission meter for trial operation. It is believed that using remote transmission
meter can reduce work load of meter reading, and assist utilities in resolving the billing
difficulties. Therefore remote transmission meter has been gradually accepted in the
market and commonly regarded as the development trend. In general, the future goal of Chinese water utilities is to establish automatic or semi-automatic meter reading systems using remote transmission meters and outdoor data collectors, supplemented by prepayment meter systems. |
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The author £º |
| James Lau ( China) is the founder and CEO of GSL Consulting Ltd. China with 20 years of working experiences in a Chinese public utility and has held various managerial positions in both domestic and international companies. He has a management degree and BSC(Eng). |
The company : |
| GSL Consulting Ltd. is a leading Chinese professional advisory service provider with a
focus on electricity, water and gas metering as well as the AMR market in China. GSL
has assisted many international clients to establish a successful business presence in the Chinese metering market, and welcome enquiries from interested parties. |
Website: www.gsl-consulting.com |
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