Telekom Austria will deploy almost 200,000 smart meters in Graz by 2020 in what it said was the first large-scale rollout in its home market.
Its domestic subsidiary A1 started work on the project last month, which will see 187,000 smart meters installed over the next three years.
The operator is working on the rollout for Stromnetz Graz, a wholly owned subsidiary of utility company Energie Graz.
Bernd Liebscher, Managing Director at the Smart Metering Competence Centre Telekom Austria Group M2M, said: “After a very intensive tendering and negotiating phase, we are delighted to have won the contract for the first large-scale smart metering rollout project in Austria. The quality of our services and experience from other major projects demonstrate that we are a reliable partner for the smart meter rollout. We can provide these services throughout Austria.”
The deployment follows a project from earlier this year, when A1 introduced 3,700 meters to Ybbs and Danube. A separate project targeting the Burgenland region got underway last year.
The country’s government has specified 95 percent of all meters must be made smart by 2019.
While it is unclear precisely which technology will power the smart meters, the rollout spells further good news for low-power, wide-area connectivity. A recent report said the likes of cellular-based NB-IoT and LoRa tech would underpin the likes of smart meter networks in the years to come.
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