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Frankfort's automated meter reading systems get a thumbs up

Posted January 14, 2008 10:00 pm

Kim Dunne

The village of Frankfort is in the middle of a pilot program in which electric and water meters at houses can be read over the village-owned wireless Internet system.

Two companies are taking part in the pilot program, one from Texas and one from Massachusetts.

Each company has 30 days to conduct the program and show the village what its system can do.

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The second company began its program on Jan. 8.

"(The first company) was very successful," said Department of Public Works Superintendent Ron Vivacqua. "We found a water leak in someone's house thanks to this company. It's a decent company to consider for the project."

Vivacqua said the water leak was found because water usage is monitored very closely over the secure Internet connection.

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"You tend to see a lot of water usage in the morning when people are waking up and taking showers to get ready for work," Vivacqua said. "It typically dies off when the residents go to work and are sleeping and picks up when they get home again. This system let us monitor that usage and found a high usage when people should be sleeping or at work and we found there was a water leak."

Vivacqua says this is one of many benefits to using the system.

He also added that the Internet is secure and that the numbers are encrypted so that only authorized personnel within the village have access to residents' information.

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The pilot program consists of having meters at various residences with each company conducting its readings. The Internet system will send the information collected right into the billing office, and then bills will be sent out accordingly.

Once the pilot program is completed the village will know the final costs as to how much each company would charge to install and implement the new system.

As long as the price is in the right range for the village, it would accept the lowest bid, and that company would be hired to implement the system.

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Vivacqua says this will make billing residents easier and more accurate.

The village currently has 1,700 electric customers and 1,100 water customers and making bills accurate is a concern.

Currently the village has a person go out with a handheld computer and manually punch numbers in at each residence or business, so this would be a cost savings for the village.

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"We wouldn't have to hire anyone to physically go out to take readings," Vivacqua said.

This wi-fi system is one step up from the drive-by system used by many municipalities. The drive-by system is where meter readers will drive-by a residence and record the electric and water usage without setting foot outside of the car.

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