Not All Sensor Data Is Created Equal: The Critical Guide to Choosing the Right Communication Technology for Water Utilities
Learn how water utilities can optimize their sensor communication strategy by choosing between SCADA, cellular, radio, satellite, and manual reads. Discover which technology works best for treatment plants, pump stations, meters, and remote monitoring to ensure reliable real-time data during critical operations and emergencies.
One water utility had a very complex water distribution system. Two large treatment plants, dozens of pump stations, water tanks, and pressure valves. They wanted to connect their data sources and infrastructure to have more real time knowledge about their system.
However, with hundreds of pumps, tanks, values, and other equipment they needed to know. Was all their data coming in equal? Or was some data more trusted and reliable than others?
Why Communication Technology Matters More Than You Think
Don’t make the mistake of assuming all your sensor data is equal. If you are working to make real time decisions based on your utility data, then the type of sensor communication technology is critical to get right. The utility team that understands their options and uses the right communication type for each purpose will have a huge advantage during times of crisis.
With sensor and communication technology you don’t have to be an expert, but it helps to know the basics.
The Five Communication Technologies Every Utility Should Know
SCADA – Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition
Best for: Treatment plants and major pump stations
This is best utilized at treatment plant sites as it’s typically a wired connection. Most utilities already have a form of SCADA in place. It is typically the faster form of communication with latency in the milliseconds for processing on site. The downside is it’s almost all directly powered. So, if you lose power at the plant, you lose all your sensors. So critical facilities often have standby generators or at least a 2nd powerline feeding them.
The big downside is most SCADA design and equipment is custom and expense to implement. So, implementing a whole system to capture just a single data point doesn’t make much sense. So, they are often at all treatment facilities, most pump stations, but rarely in the distribution or collection piping systems.
Bottom line: SCADA excels at treatment facilities and major pump stations where you need real-time control and monitoring, but it’s overkill for widespread distribution monitoring.
Cellular Networks
Best for: Mobile sensors, high-data applications, and flexible deployments
This can be very easy to implement. You can just deploy sensors and then the big cell carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) will read it for you and give you data access. This has a lot of popularity because the utility doesn’t have to set up or maintain any of its network. The big upside is the ability to stream audio or video files from a device thanks to 4g and 5g. The big downside is the ongoing costs for the cell carriers. It’s also typically a bigger drain on battery than other options. Your communications are also owned by the cell networks, not by the utility so you have to make sure your devices will be supported for the long term.
Bottom line: Cellular works beautifully for sensors that need flexibility, produce significant data, or require occasional relocation, but the recurring costs and battery drain add up.
Radio Networks
Best for: Water meters and fixed-location sensors
The utility will either contract out or provide their own radio towers for this. It can be extremely flexible as the utility owns or controls their equipment and network. So, if there is an area of town with poor cell coverage, they can just extend their own radio network to cover it. The big downside is that instead of the cell companies carrying all the towers and maintenance, now the utility must do it. On the plus side the ranges and battery life are typically better.
There are also mesh options for radio. It’s often used for electric metering as there is a strong power feed at the meter/sensors. It works by hopping from one sensor to the next until it hits a collector which then has a cellular or satellite backhaul.
Bottom line: Radio networks excel for high-volume, fixed-location deployments like meter reading were long battery life and network ownership matter most.
Satellite Communication
Best for: Remote assets and mission-critical redundancy
Many utilities use this to monitor remote assets or when they cannot get reliable coverage from radio or cellular. This uses satellites in low orbit around the earth to get reads from basically anywhere. It’s very common to see these for water quality monitoring on streams or oceans with no nearby cell signals. The down sides are latency can be up to a few seconds, and battery life is drained quicker.
One of the most popular networks for utilities is Iridium as it’s not very affected by weather. There is a live tracker here:
Bottom line: Satellite shines for remote monitoring and as a backup communication path for critical assets during major infrastructure failures when ground-based networks go down.
Manual Reads
Best for: Quality validation and infrequent monitoring
While not often discussed this can be a good option. If you deploy a traditional sensor, meter, or equipment it requires someone to be onsite, observe the reading, and then log the reading. Examples can be chemical samples, high water marks, visual observations, or other data that is gathered less often.
A hidden benefit of this approach is it can also be used to validate the workers and their performance. If you are making a quick data checklist as part of their responsibilities to fill out each data, then it provides both a quality check on any sensors plus an accountability check on the worker.
Bottom line: Manual reads complement automated systems by providing quality assurance and enabling data collection where sensor deployment isn’t cost-effective.
The Real-World Strategy: How One Utility Got It Right
After mapping their existing infrastructure against available options, this utility implemented a strategic, multi-technology approach:
Treatment plants and pump stations → SCADA: Near-instantaneous monitoring of critical assets with on-site data historians and one-way connections to analytics databases for enhanced security.
Water quality and pressure monitoring → Cellular: Dozens of sensors requiring flexibility, mobility, and moderate data volumes connected via cellular networks for easy reconfiguration.
Water meters → Radio: Thousands of meters needing 15+ year battery life in fixed locations, some beyond cellular reach, streaming low-volume data multiple times daily via utility-owned radio infrastructure.
Wastewater level sensors → Satellite: Critical overflow monitoring with communication completely independent of ground infrastructure, ensuring data flow even when storms knock out power and cellular service.
Building Your Communication Strategy
There is no silver bullet for communication technology. It depends on each utility and exactly what their needs area. A good approach is to have most of your devices on a single platform but provide redundancy at a few critical areas and locations. Take an assessment of all the devices you rely upon for getting data for your water operations. Do you have any gaps? What about redundancies?
For example, all your wastewater lift stations should have SCADA to monitor and control the pumps. If there is a big power outage you could do for days or weeks without a reading. So, it may be a good idea to have a cellular or radio device backup just monitoring the level for your team as the backup.
It does make sense to press the vendors for the full communications platform they use. Make sure you know the full data handling chain and their responsibility vs others. If they rely on a cellular network, they will have limited control over future updates. Likewise, if they have a radio network see how much work is required of your utility vs the vendor.
Questions to Ask Your Vendors
Don’t accept vendor specifications at face value. Demand transparency about the complete data handling chain:
- Who owns and operates each component of the communication infrastructure?
- What happens to support and compatibility during technology transitions?
- If they use cellular networks, what’s their contingency plan for carrier changes?
- If they operate radio networks, what maintenance responsibilities fall to your utility versus the vendor?
Understanding these answers before deployment will save you from costly surprises and service disruptions down the road.
Your Next Step
Take 30 minutes this week to map your current sensor communication strategy. Document which technology supports each critical asset, identify any gaps in redundancy, and flag systems where a communication failure would create operational blind spots.
The utilities that thrive aren’t necessarily those with the most sensors, they’re the ones that have strategically matched each monitoring need with the right communication technology.
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