57
Water meters connected
1,200 km2
Covered by a single private network
5
Data plans for the entire network
The challenge of monitoring water across a remote rural network
For the Narromine Stock and Domestic Committee, water monitoring across a 1,200 km² scheme in central western New South Wales depended on solving one problem: much of the scheme sits beyond the reach of adequate commercial mobile coverage. Novecom’s answer was a private network that monitors all 57 meters in real time, running the entire scheme on five data plans rather than 57. Before this, staff travelled to individual sites each quarter to collect readings that could be weeks out of date by the time they reached the office.
Client and scheme context
The Narromine Stock and Domestic Committee administer water supply across approximately 1,200 km² of central western New South Wales, serving 57 rural properties. Water allocation management requires accurate, timely consumption data from every property. Without it, the committee cannot effectively enforce allocation limits, identify leaks, or support individual water users trying to manage their own consumption. Accurate metering data is also a compliance requirement under the non-urban metering rules enforced by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR).
How does a carrier-independent mesh network reach 57 meters where commercial coverage is limited?
The core problem was connectivity. Commercial mobile coverage does not extend across most of the scheme’s geography, making standard telemetry products unworkable. The options available before this project were limited: continue with costly quarterly manual reads or invest in private connectivity infrastructure that most off-the-shelf products were not designed to support.
The risks of inaction were operational and commercial. Manual reads produced data that was already weeks old, limiting the committee’s ability to respond to overuse, identify faults, or give members accurate consumption information. As regulatory and reporting requirements around water usage continue to tighten in New South Wales, the adequacy of quarterly manual reads was increasingly under pressure.
A self-healing mesh across the full scheme
Novecom designed and deployed a private agricultural connectivity network using SynaptiX® ConnectMESH, a carrier-independent LoRa mesh platform built specifically for remote and regional Australian environments where commercial coverage is unavailable or limited.
Rather than connecting 57 meters to 57 individual data plans, Novecom used radio frequency modelling across the full 1,200 km² to determine optimal gateway placement and node configuration. The result was a mesh architecture that routes meter data hop by hop through a series of relay nodes, arriving at five central gateways. Each relay node carries zero ongoing operating cost.
Running 57 individual data plans across the scheme would have meant 57 separate monthly costs and 57 individual points of failure, with no way to control or monitor the network as a whole. Satellite and per-SIM cellular alternatives carry the same problem: a fault on any individual connection goes undetected until the next site visit. By routing all meter data through five gateways, the Committee carries a tenth of the recurring connectivity cost while gaining a single network they can monitor and manage centrally, with faults visible remotely as soon as they occur.
The SynaptiX® ConnectMESH platform is self-healing: if a node fails, the network automatically routes around it. Five data plan subscriptions cover the entire network. The platform operates as a fully self-contained private network with no dependence on commercial telco infrastructure.
What changed after the network went live?
The Narromine scheme is now monitored in real time, with continuous data available remotely to both the committee and individual water users.
- All 57 water meters connected across 1,200 km² with real-time remote access
- Quarterly manual meter reads replaced by continuous remote monitoring
- Five data plan subscriptions covering the entire network, replacing the cost and complexity of 57 individual connections
- Remote system diagnostics reducing the need for on-site visits
- Individual water users able to monitor their own consumption and track water efficiency goals
The Narromine scheme is backed by ongoing remote support from Novecom. The Committee has access to a SynaptiX® dashboard providing real-time visibility across all 57 meters, and Novecom’s team monitors network health and data continuity to ensure the system performs reliably between site visits.
“Novecom were very good to deal with. Their professionalism and expertise in this area was exceptional. Their ability to problem solve helped us jump hoops that we did not recognise. Not only did they devise and compose the technology we needed but they had feet on the ground during the construction phase. The communication they exhibited during the phases of the project and in the follow-up period has been excellent and has assisted us to collaborate and understand the process every step of the way. I would highly recommend their work to any other water users who require the technology for an efficient, sophisticated and modern system.”Susan McCutcheon, Chair | Narromine Stock and Domestic Committee
A scalable model for remote water monitoring
Rural water schemes, irrigation boards, and stock and domestic committees across Australia face the same connectivity barrier. Coverage gaps make standard IoT products unworkable, and the cost of 57 individual data plans makes digital monitoring financially unviable for most schemes of this size.
This project demonstrates that a carrier-independent mesh network can solve both problems simultaneously: full scheme connectivity from a single private network, at a fraction of the per-meter cost of conventional approaches. For any rural water manager evaluating remote monitoring options, the Narromine scheme is a direct proof point for what is achievable at 1,200 km² scale.
Connect your remote water network
If you manage a rural water scheme, irrigation board, or stock and domestic committee and need reliable remote monitoring where commercial carrier coverage is limited or doesn’t reach across your full scheme, talk to Novecom about carrier-independent connectivity designed for your conditions.
