You would be hard pressed to find a phone store in the U.S. that still had 3G cell phones for sale. Today everyone wants the superior speed, reliability, and wider coverage of 4G LTE.

Cellular communication has been an option for grid endpoints such as meters and sensors for a number of years. It is a particularly useful option for intelligent endpoint communications where mesh networks are not available or where it is not cost effective to extend a mesh network to more remote areas. Many of these grid devices were installed years ago and are still communicating over slower, less reliable 2G and 3G networks. With 4G LTE as the new standard for speed, reliability and coverage for the foreseeable future, does it make any sense for utilities to buy grid devices that don’t support 4G LTE?

Sentient Energy is the only company that offers intelligent grid sensors that support 4G LTE cellular communications. Sentient Energy’s LTE-based MM3™ and ZM1™ intelligent sensors are also backward compatible so they extend coverage across the 4G/3G/2G spectrum. Our LTE-compatible sensor platform can be quickly deployed with virtually no additional infrastructure costs, making it an ideal option for utilities without a suitable DA network. Sentient LTE-based sensors are fully-integrated with Sentient Energy’s Ample™ 3.0 Analytics platform to analyze large volumes of high-resolution waveforms data to locate and identify potential faults and other grid events, even before they occur.