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Communication

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Communication Options

Enetics' mission is to make it easy and affordable for Customers to monitor the status and performance of their networks. This includes retrieving data remotely from the field and also verifying operational performance while on-site.  Encrypted cellular telemetry, using current LTE 4G and 5G networks, is our choice for capturing data to the Enetics cloud servers from remote sites.  No power drops are required, nor are any special radio network hardware.  Communications with Enetics instruments on-site is achieved using a free bluetooth cellphone App called RTUBlue.  

Cellular Telemetry

Natural Gas Products - The Enetics GasTrack and GasPoint Remote Telemetry Units (RTU) utililze LTE / Cat M1 low power cellular telemetry.  This is termed the Long Term Evolution of UMTS technology and is deployed worldwide. All major cellular carriers support the LTE standards, which include both 4G and 5G protocols used in consumer cellular networks.  

The LTE / Cat M1 narrow band channels utilized by Enetics are subchannels of the LTE standard. The Cat M1 channels are part of the low power wide area network (LPWAN) technology developed by 3GPP as part of the 13th edition of the LTE standard. 

Cat M1 channels are available worldwide and are subsets of the existing LTE 4G and 5G networks and are intended for IoT based, low data traffic communications.  Cat M1 channels use the same cellular tower networks used in commercial and consumer cell phones. The low power levels required for Cat M1 operation allow the exceptional 5 year battery lifetime offered by all Enetics RTU's.   

RTUBlue™ is a free cell phone application available for iPhones (App Store) or Android (Play Store) download. The App allows a User to communicate locally with the GasTrack or GasPoint RTU’s locally, within a distance of up to 100 feet.

Features include the ability to view RTU sensor readings such as pressure, flow, and temperature as well as internal RTU measurements including cellular signal strength, projected battery life, humidity, temperature and barometric pressure. In addition to these measurements, the RTUBlue App can initiate a cellular call and display the progress and final status of the call.

Once activated, RTUBlue scans for and displays all Enetics RTU’s within range and the User selects the RTU of interest. RTU’s are identified by serial number, but additionally, names or “tags” such as “Walnut Street” or “Reg Station 6” can be assigned to an RTU. Individual sensor channels can also be tagged with names like “Inlet Pressure” or “Line”. Tagged names are stored in RTU non-volatile memory, so personnel visiting the site using RTUBlue in the future will see those same names appear on the cellphone screen during scanning. Note only one person can communicate with any particular RTU at a time.

Nearby bluetooth devices such as cell phones, speakers, or headphones are filtered out and will not appear in the App. The screen update rate for sensor readings and internal RTU information is once every five seconds during an RTUBlue communication session. Upon session completion, the RTU will revert back to prior assigned sensor sampling speeds.