French water company Sogedo has penned a 10-year partnership with IoT solutions provider UnaBiz to use its Sigfox network.

The partnership will see the two companies work together to help Sogedo enhance its water conservation efforts, and water consumption management for people in France.

Smart meter solutions will be deployed by UnaBiz to support Sogedo monitor its customer's water consumption.

These smart meter solutions include smart meters, water consumption sensors, pressure sensors, and condition monitoring sensors, all of which are powered by Sigfox's low-power wide-area (LPWA) '0G' technology.

The efficient water metering solutions have been implemented by Sogedo since March 2016, with over 22,000 devices deployed since this date, while over 1,000 alerts have been recorded by the water company, resulting in the detection of over 500 leaks in its customer base.

According to Sogedo, the detection of leaks has helped the company to save over 90,000 cubic meters of water throughout its water distribution network, the equivalent of 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

"This partnership demonstrates our desire to offer our customers services that meet their needs and current challenges," said Julien Siffert, expert for remote control solutions at Lyon-based Sogedo.

The combination of Sogedo’s expertise in Water and UnaBiz’s know-how in communication technologies bring about better operations, time-savings, and the better management of precious water resources for the benefit of the community."

Sogedo is aiming to double its customer base with this partnership, though the number of customers it has remains unknown.

Founded in 2010, IoT network provider Sigfox filed for insolvency protection in France last year, citing slow sales of its products and challenging conditions in the IoT industry due to Covid-19. Singapore-based IoT network firm Unabiz subsequently acquired Sigfox and its French network operations for a reported €25 million ($27m).

Founded in 2016, Singapore-based UnaBiz offers IoT solutions using low-power wide-area (LPWA) technologies such as Sigfox, LTE-M, NB-IoT, and LoRa. It owns and operates the Sigfox 0G Network in Singapore & Taiwan. The company raised $25 million in a Series B round extension last month.