Leander's City Council received a detailed briefing on Nov. 6 from Atlas consultants and city staff about the Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) project, which will replace and network approximately 32,000 water meter endpoints and provide both a utility analytics platform (Neptune 360) and a customer portal (Neptune My360).

Consultant Tommy McLuhan told the council the implementation is operating three parallel work streams: a field survey, network installation and data integration into billing systems. The meter survey, which captures GPS locations and performs a visual lead-service-line inventory, is about 95% complete, he said, and crews are preparing meter boxes so installations will be clean and efficient.

McLuhan said the initial network design will use a mix of fixed collectors and commercial cellular modules. "We have one monopole planned at Fire Station No. 4, eight SCADA towers, and four elevated storage tanks being used as collectors," he said. Areas where elevation or terrain make fixed collectors impractical will be served by cellular modules. He said the project team is leaning on much existing infrastructure to reduce new vertical assets.

City staff and consultants said the deployment will begin with "antenna-only" AMI-ready meters that require minimal intrusion to the customer meter box; full metering assemblies will follow after the communication network is validated. The antenna-only approach, McLuhan said, reduces the chance of damage or landscape disturbance during early installs and allows staged rollouts of AMI-enabled accounts.

On customer-facing software, consultants said Neptune My360 will be used to present consumption data and support conservation efforts; Neptune 360 will be the city's utility analytics portal. The project team told the council the portal will not be linked to the city's payment system at rollout. To reduce risk to personally identifiable billing data, staff said they plan to transfer billing information via a manual flat file to avoid an automated API integration.

Council members asked detailed security questions. McLuhan and staff said encryption and industry-standard protections are in place for data at rest and in transit and that the city's chief information officer has been involved in security requirements. Staff committed to follow up on whether multifactor authentication (MFA) will be enabled for the customer portal.

Residents asked whether AMI could be used to enforce watering schedules or perform remote shut-offs. The city manager and consultants responded that AMI is intended for billing accuracy, leak detection and customer service; statutory privacy protections limit sharing of utility data, and no remote shut-off capability is being installed. The council was told the ordinary physical shut-off process will remain unchanged.

Consultants described changes since the original 2022 plan: updated 2024–25 account counts increased by roughly 5,000 accounts, and site visits altered the number and placement of communication poles. The team is finalizing a valuation of cost changes tied to replacing monopoles with additional cellular modules. McLuhan said AMI data can augment hydraulic models and, in later phases, support additional sensors such as pressure monitoring to improve leak detection and system modeling.

Staff outlined outreach plans that include in-person demonstrations at the Old Town Christmas event and other public engagement. The project team emphasized change management for city operations so staff can learn to use meter data and customer-service workflows as the project ramps up.

The council did not take action on the project during the Nov. 6 meeting; staff indicated installations would begin once collectors and network components are in place and that customers would be notified prior to installation on their routes.