Datamatic to Provide Meter Reading Technology to Kansas City, Missouri.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2002 Datamatic announced today that it has reached an agreement with the City of Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City is the largest city in the state of Missouri. It encompasses parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest in Missouri, which includes counties in both Missouri and Kansas. to provide electronic meter reading (EMR (ElectroMagnetic Radiation) The emanation of energy from everything in the universe. Although the EMR from electrical and electronic devices is typically measured for practical, every-day situations, every object, including humans, emanates energy. ) technology for the collection of water metering Water metering is the process of measuring water use through water meters. Prevalence Water metering is common for residential and commercial drinking water supply in many countries, as well as for industrial self-supply with water. data throughout its 165,000-customer service area. Kansas City's meter readers will use 36 of Datamatic's newest handheld computer A computing device that can be easily held in one hand while the other hand is used to operate it. The Palm devices are a popular example. See Palm, smartphone and palmtop. , the X7. The X7, Datamatic's seventh generation handheld, has been ruggedized to military standards (MIL-STD-810E) and features a faster processor, expanded memory and "intelligent" power management. An optional radio board can be installed for easy migration to walk-by automatic meter reading Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the technology of automatically collecting data from water meter or energy metering devices (water, gas, electric) and transferring that data to a central database for billing and/or analyzing. (AMR (1) (Adaptive Multi-Rate) A variable rate speech codec selected by the 3GPP for the 3G evolution of the GSM cellphone system (WCDMA). Using the Algebraic CELP (ACELP) compression technology, AMR provides toll quality sound at transmission rates from 4.75 to 12. ) with the FIREFLY AMR system. The X7 also supports probing of all popular water meter "touch" protocols. Joe Alongi, Manager of Reading and Service at Kansas City Water said, "The X7 handhelds met all of our requirements. We think they will form a solid, dependable foundation for the 'field' side of the operation. Datamatic also allows us to do probe reading even though we have meter number duplication in our database. That's a great feature." The project also calls for the implementation of the RouteSTAR MVP (Multimedia Video Processor) A high-speed DSP chip from Texas Instruments, introduced in 1994. Officially introduced as the TMS320C80, it combines RISC technology with the functionality of four DSPs on one chip. Route Management application in a distributed environment. KC Water dispatches meter readers from two locations but maintains a centralized database in its main office. The architecture of RouteSTAR MVP will allow system operators to assign meter routes, run reading and productivity reports and perform administrative tasks from any node on the network. Alongi appreciated the exceptional flexibility of Datamatic's integration approach. "In addition to the new meter reading system, we are also transitioning to a new utility billing system. Datamatic offered us the smoothest combined migration path for these projects." Datamatic Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Scott Durham, said, "Datamatic always appreciates and is humbled by the confidence our customers place in us. It drives us to constantly improve what we can offer. We look forward to having our solution be a part of taking Kansas City Water to their next level. "We have been extremely pleased with the industry's reception of the X7. Kansas City has joined a growing list of utilities such as Puget Sound Energy Puget Sound Energy (PSE) is an energy company providing electrical power and natural gas in the Puget Sound region of the northwest United States. It serves electrical power to over 1 million customers in Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Kittitas, Pierce, Skagit, Thurston, and , City of Phoenix, Arizona and Baton Rouge Water that have recently chosen it as their EMR/AMR handheld platform." About Datamatic Datamatic has been in business since 1977 as a leading provider of meter reading and field data collection solutions and has more than 400 utility installations in the US and abroad. |
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