The Structural Shift Toward Fixed-Network Water Metering

Water utilities are moving away from mobile meter reading and toward fixed-network architectures. New market data from Berg Insight shows that the installed base of water AMI endpoints in Europe and North America is forecast to nearly double between 2025 and 2031.

The transition from AMR—meters read through mobile operations like drive-by or walk-by collection—to AMI represents a change in how utilities manage infrastructure. While drive-by readings can digitize billing, they lack the capacity for continuous monitoring and leakage detection. The shift toward AMI provides the foundation for near-real-time operational data.

The scale of this deployment is significant. Europe and North America had a combined 79.1 million water AMI endpoints installed at the end of 2025. This figure is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.8 percent, reaching 154.5 million endpoints in 2031. The broader base of communicating utility water meters, which includes both AMI and AMR, is forecast to rise from 190.1 million units in 2025 to 249.2 million units in 2031.

The real story lies in the changing market share of these technologies. In 2025, AMI represented about 42 percent of communicating water meters across these two regions. By 2031, that share is expected to reach roughly 62 percent. This indicates that utilities are not merely adding connected devices; they are fundamentally reconfiguring their installed base toward fixed-network infrastructure.

For the IoT industry, this shift changes the technical requirements for the sector. The move toward a more IoT-oriented operating model dictates new standards for module selection, network design, battery-life assumptions, and data management. North America remains the largest market for both AMR and AMI water metering, with several completed projects involving more than 100,000 endpoints.

The transition to fixed networks means the value of a meter is no longer found in its ability to communicate, but in the frequency and depth of that communication.

As these deployments scale, how will utility providers manage the massive increase in data integration requirements?