🥇GSM IoT provider in housing and utilities (Part 1)

I read the author's articles Interfer about the challenges in IoT and decided to share my experience as an IoT provider.

The first article is non-advertising, with most of the material lacking equipment models. I will try to write more details in the following articles.

I don't see any issues with using GSM modems to collect data from accounting devices, as I was involved in creating a collection system for 795 residential buildings, with polling every hour; its stability has been confirmed over three years of operation.

The geography of the working IoT network now includes over 5000 collection points across Russia.

Challenges

Connection timeouts - the quality of communication in the basement is, to put it mildly, not great. There are two options: leave it as it is or change the location of the connection point, but transmitting a small volume of data is sufficient.

Staff - yes, they are few, but the issue is somewhat different; not every good specialist is willing to go into the basement without financial incentive.

The varied equipment can cause a lot of trouble, especially when there are more than 100 different models and modifications, but there are ready-made solutions.

Data collection server - I do not recommend reinventing the wheel and writing from scratch unless it’s a project with 100,000 points and equipment of one model at the site.

Lack of quality installation at facilities, each site has its makeshift solutions. I will provide examples from my personal archives; you can draw your own conclusions about how to connect to this without stress (examples below).

In all cases, the external data collection unit

Example of installation when everything is done right (accelerated)

How it works for the end user in simple or not-so-simple examples

1) I'm on a train
2) Connected to the RZD Wi-Fi
3) Entering the corporate network

Example 1

VKT7Easy2 and heat calculator VKT-7

Entering IP address:

Receiving settings

Trying to read data for a month

After 10 minutes of experimentation, I concluded that the train is not the best place to poll devices located in the basement, but I was able to get readings for a day, along with hourly ones, without much trouble.