Semtech, Vision Metering Grow Utility Market in U.S., Latin America

Semtech Corp. announced this week that Vision Metering LLC has increased its deployment of long-range, low-power wide area network protocol technology in markets in the U.S. and Latin America.Vision manufactures smart electric meters and meter interface units for water and gas meters. Camarillo-based Semtech’s LoRa is a wireless technology that allows machine-to-machine communications.As a result of integrating Semtech’s LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN protocol, Vision, in York, S.C., confirmed it has installed the technology in municipal utilities in the U.S. and Latin America.For instance, Isle Electric & Gas Co-Op, a rural electric cooperative over a nine-county area in northeast Michigan, has deployed the Semtech technology to replace the manual reading of more than 47,000 utility meters.Marc Pegulu, vice president of Internet-of-Things (IoT) for Semtech’s wireless and sensing products group, said that Vision’s smart meters with LoRa empower utility companies with smart, sustainable and efficient bill management.“The ease of deployment, scalability and cost-savings capabilities of LoRaWAN make it the de facto platform connectivity choice for a growing market of electrical, water and gas IoT monitoring applications,” Pegulu said in a statement.The announcement was made on Tuesday. On Thursday, shares of Semtech (SMTC) closed up $1.12, or 1.6 percent, to $70.07 on the Nasdaq, on a day when that market closed up 1.3 percent.