Arkansas cities get ‘ smart’ with technology

LITTLE ROCK — The mayor of a northwest Arkansas city wants the local water utility to be able to tell residents if their toilet is broken or if a pipe bursts without a utility employee ever having to set foot on their property.

Mulberry has ordered its first 50 “smart” water meters and is planning to shift its more than 1,600 residents, its businesses, schools and government buildings to them over the next three years. That will bring the ability for the city- run utility to see if water has been flowing for more than 15 minutes and send a text message to the customer.

“It detects if there’s something unusual,” Mayor Gary Baxter told representatives from about a dozen Arkansas cities, towns and utilities in Little Rock on Tuesday. “They may be filling the swimming pool, or they may be taking a long shower. There may be reasons for it, but if the customer knows that it’s running for a long period… then they could know they’ve got a water leak somewhere.”

The municipal officials were gathered for a technology event sponsored by Verizon, which hopes to link the cities with service providers that can help them implement “smart city” technologies using wireless platforms. That might mean tracking energy efficiency at homes or shortening wait times at traffic signals.

Baxter said part of the hope for “smart city” initiatives is attracting younger, more technologysavvy residents interested in the benefits of living in a connected town with abundant wireless Internet, immediately available information and downloadable applications to keep them informed.

But, he said, the technology also saves the city money. The new water meters won’t require a fleet of meter readers to go to every house. They also won’t lose their accuracy as they age, like Mulberry’s current meters.

Jonathan Blitz, the South Central Region director of Business Sales for Verizon Wireless, says the goal is for the technology to make residents’ lives better and maybe safer.

“It can help with things like road conditions when you can make smarter traffic lights,” Blitz said. “It does go much deeper and wider for what the potential is for these cities.” Public safety and fire departments, he said, could plug in their routes “and the lights turn green. Not only is it something that could get them to the fire much more quickly, but it’s also much safer.”

He said in states like Arkansas, where much of the population is rural, the wireless platforms are already in place through cellphone towers and don’t require the expensive infrastructure that goes along with broadband Internet.