Dead Possum Patrol Aided by NYC Wireless Network

Tag : wireless water meter

I’m going for the sensational in the headline, but it’spart of the story’s intro, too: The New York Times reports on some early uses of the city’s$500m wireless network designed for non-public uses. The networkuses UMTS over licensed spectrum specifically devoted thecity’s municipal and public safety purposes.
One of the projects leaders uses terms that should warm every NewYorker’s heart, if he or she knew what they meant. IT headPaul Cosgrave says the system will overcome silos, an oftendisparaging term for the separation of resources across groups thatcan only expensively be overcome. It’s the government andbusiness equivalent of the academic problem of a lack ofcross-discipline focus.
One of the first applications allows sanitation workforce managersa frighteningly precise amount of knowledge about routes,activities, and behavior of trucks in their territory. Let’shope that’s not misused! Efficiency is one thing;micro-management is another.
Another project is testing wireless water-meter reading. The cityhopes to spend $90 per meter for the upgrade and shed part of a$12.2m contract with Con Edison that covers 850,000 units. Whatshould be useful about this is that problems can be detected bymonitoring waterflow patterns, which in turn allows the often hugeproblems that take months to notice (occurring underground or inbasements where rivers formerly flowed) to be stopped before theyturn into multi-million-dollar problems for property owners or thecity. Anytime anything happens in Manhattan, it’s amulti-million dollar problem.