Town hears pros and cons of drive-by, fixed-base and cellular metering systems

In the vendor presentation Kevin Carter walked councilors through technical tradeoffs between drive-by radio reads, fixed-base collectors and cellular metering. He described the limits of public-spectrum Itron radios and the advantages of a licensed private frequency: "The iTron radios are talking at 0.2 watts. Our radios are talking at a full 2 watts," he said, explaining the greater read reliability of the licensed band.

Carter explained that a drive-by system can be deployed now and migrated later to a fixed-base antenna, while a cellular AMI deployment would provide continuous hourly usage logs (useful for fast leak detection) but could be dependent on cellular carriers' networks and future technology shifts. Council asked about installation time per meter and the vendor estimated a conservative 15–20 minutes per meter when excavation is required; reading equipment itself carries a shorter activation time and a one‑year reading-equipment warranty while meters carry a longer metrology warranty.