Wastewater lift stations move flow from a lower elevation to a higher one where gravity cannot carry it further. They sit at the low points of a collection system, usually unmanned and often at the edge of the service area. For operators, visibility into wet well level, pump status and power at these sites depends entirely on the communication path installed there.
The pressure to modernize that infrastructure is well documented. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave wastewater infrastructure a D+ in its 2025 report card, and funding has consistently fallen short of what maintenance requires.
This use case looks at how Rugged Telemetry modernized lift station monitoring for a municipal utility, drawing on its white paper, Revolutionizing Lift Station Monitoring. It covers the challenges the utility faced, the connectivity architecture Rugged Telemetry deployed, how it integrated with their existing SCADA system, and what other utilities should take from it.
The deployment at a glance
- Customer: Rugged Telemetry, which builds monitoring and control systems for remote and industrial infrastructure across water, wastewater, oil and gas, and agriculture.
- End deployment: lift stations operated by the City of Watertown, New York.
- Hardware and software: Rugged Connect field enclosures reporting into AssetIQ, Rugged Telemetry’s cloud monitoring platform.
- Connectivity: Velocity IoT multi-IMSI cellular as the primary path, ORBCOMM satellite as automatic backup.
- Integration: AssetIQ RESTful APIs feeding the utility’s existing Inductive Automation Ignition SCADA system.
- Reported outcome: 99% uptime on dual communication paths, fewer call-outs, and data logs meeting EPA and state reporting standards.
What problems was the utility facing before the upgrade?
The City of Watertown, New York was managing a growing lift station network on aging communication infrastructure, with rising costs and fragmented data visibility. Rugged Telemetry’s white paper documents four specific problems at the sites.
- Connectivity failed when it was needed most, during storms and at remote stations.
- Installing legacy SCADA communication equipment was costly and complex, which slowed any expansion.
- Data sat in silos, limiting both real-time insight and historical analysis.
- The monitoring in place integrated poorly with the Ignition SCADA system the utility already ran.
The white paper attributes the resulting inefficiencies, delayed maintenance and unnecessary operating costs to those four challenges.
What did the lift station monitoring deployment look like?
Rugged Connect is an industrial-grade remote telemetry and control solution built for harsh environments and critical infrastructure such as lift stations. The utility selected it for four reasons: plug-and-play deployment with minimal on-site configuration, a hybrid communications architecture running cellular-first with automatic satellite fallback, built-in compatibility with the AssetIQ monitoring platform, and an open API framework for integration with third-party systems.
Rugged Telemetry reports that each Rugged Connect enclosure was operational within hours, with pre-configured communications and sensor mapping, and that no expensive hardwiring or trenching was required. The white paper also lists low training overhead, noting that Rugged Connect was designed for ease of use by existing public works staff.
How does the redundant connectivity architecture work?
Rugged Connect runs cellular as the primary path and satellite as an automatic backup, so a failure in one does not take the site offline.
Primary path: multi-network cellular
The cellular path uses Velocity IoT multi-IMSI SIMs, which provide access to multiple carriers, including the major U.S. networks, and switch between them automatically without manual intervention. Rugged Telemetry’s white paper lists four features that mattered for this deployment: carrier and IMSI redundancy for improved uptime, lower latency via local packet gateways, secure OTA updates, and real-time diagnostics for faster troubleshooting.
Backup path: ORBCOMM satelliteWhen no cellular network is available, the enclosure fails over to ORBCOMM satellite automatically, keeping critical data moving through outages, storms and carrier failures.
How did the new telemetry integrate with the existing SCADA system?
AssetIQ, Rugged Telemetry’s cloud monitoring platform, acts as the central data hub, and its RESTful APIs feed lift station telemetry directly into the utility’s existing Inductive Automation Ignition SCADA system.
- Operators monitor and control lift stations inside Ignition, the interface they already knew.
- Alarms and events surface through that same interface rather than a second console.
- Long-term archiving and reporting run through Ignition’s analytics engine, so the compliance record stays in one place.
The white paper calls this a hybrid cloud-local architecture, pairing AssetIQ’s cloud analytics with the operational visibility and control of the utility’s own SCADA system.
What results did the deployment deliver?
Rugged Telemetry reports 99% uptime across the deployment, attributed to the dual communication paths. Alerts and diagnostics shortened the path from problem to resolution, and remote data access cut site visits, reducing off-hour costs. Data logs now meet EPA and state reporting standards. The utility can also add stations without redesigning the architecture, which matters for a network that was already growing when the project started.
Read the full deployment. The complete detail, including the system diagram, the AssetIQ and Ignition dashboard views, and photos of the installed enclosures, is in Rugged Telemetry’s white paper. Download the white paper.
How Velocity IoT supports mission-critical monitoring deployments
Velocity IoT delivers multi-network connectivity using multi-IMSI and eUICC technology, with remote profile management so a deployment can change its network strategy as it grows. For a monitoring application, the practical benefit is redundancy at the credential level: a site keeps options when one network degrades.
Our team works with customers on connectivity strategy, covering SIM technology, network selection, coverage planning and device compatibility. On a remote-site deployment, that pre-deployment work is where most of the reliability is decided.
Getting started is deliberately low-commitment. Velocity IoT SIMs are available through Digi-Key with no minimum order, and Velocity Flex offers self-service activation with no contract required. Contract-based options are also available for custom plans and deeper platform capabilities.
Have questions about connectivity for mission-critical lift station monitoring? Contact Us.
