Why cellular networks are critical for environmental monitoring and control
by Webbing Team | December 16, 2025
When people talk about Green IoT, they usually mean using IoT in a way that reduces environmental impact. It includes two parts: IoT systems that help cut pollution or resource waste, and IoT devices and networks designed to use as little resources as possible over their lifecycle. Last year, we published a blog post on how IoT connectivity solutions can be made greener. But beyond the IoT infrastructure, there are multiple applications where cellular connectivity helps minimize environmental impact by enabling systems that monitor and optimize resource consumption.
As with any other part of IoT, theoretically Green IoT may leverage a mix of cellular, short-range, and wired connectivity depending on the environment and the use case. However, cellular connectivity is a major enabler for large scale wide-area Green IoT deployments like distributed water assets or environmental monitoring stations, because it removes the need for building local infrastructure and works over large territories.
The range of IoT devices that rely on cellular networks in these deployments is wide. While many of them today are small-payload sensor systems, that doesn’t mean that Green IoT is limited to low-data sensors. In fact, Green IoT covers everything from a soil-moisture sensor that sends 20 bytes of data per day to a 5G-connected unmanned boat that streams real-time HD image data and sonar back to shore when inspecting dams and reservoirs. The number of cellular-connected Green IoT devices is growing. According to Transforma Insights, the total number of smart meters globally will reach 3.4 billion by 2033, doubling from 1.7 billion at the end of 2023, and a majority of them will be connected to cellular networks.
Let’s take a look at the most prominent use cases enabled by cellular connectivity.
Smarter Energy Management Through Cellular-Connected IoT
Some Green IoT systems help cut energy waste by tracking electricity consumption and by automatically adjusting equipment to use less power when it isn’t needed. They may vary from smart meters that track consumption to smart building systems that manage heating and lighting based on schedules or occupancy. In industry, energy monitoring systems track machines and processes to identify inefficiencies and avoid running equipment in wasteful modes. Another common example is demand response, where many devices temporarily reduce their electricity use when the grid is under strain or when electricity is more expensive.
Cellular connectivity is important for these systems because it gives smart controllers and industrial sensors a dependable way to send data and receive commands without needing to install new infrastructure at every site. Oftentimes these devices are spread out across a city or country, located in hard-to-reach places like basements and remote facilities, but they still need consistent coverage. Since energy systems often need fast and reliable control, cellular networks are important because of their low latency. Cellular connectivity also makes it easier to scale deployments and manage devices remotely. For example, the town of West Springfield, Massachusetts, set a goal to cut energy use by 20% over four years and chose to upgrade more than 2,000 streetlights to LED with smart controls. The lighting nodes connect over a public 4G LTE cellular network to a cloud management system. According to the town’s estimate, the project saves over $300,000 per year by reducing annual streetlighting costs by 73%, and the cellular-enabled smart lighting system lets the team schedule and dim lights as needed, detect outages, and manage lighting remotely without sending crews out for visual checks.
Cellular IoT for Water, Wastewater, and Flood Monitoring Systems
Other IoT systems help manage water more efficiently and safely. They monitor and control how water is taken from the environment, moved through pipes and pumps, stored, and consumed. Their main goal is to avoid wasting water, precision irrigation that relies on soil and weather data to water crops only when needed and leak detection in city water networks are good examples of such systems. They may involve many types of connected devices such as water quality sensors that measure pH or dissolved oxygen in drinking-water systems.
IoT is also widely applied in wastewater networks. Monitoring levels and flow helps prevent sewage spills into rivers and groundwater and helps detect abnormal events early. In many cases, IoT systems are implemented to monitor water resources and rainwater collection to avoid flooding. For instance, after severe flooding in 2017 forced mass evacuations in Argentina, local authorities deployed a cellular-enabled IoT early flood detection and warning system. The system uses river-level and weather sensors installed at multiple points along the river, which transmit data over cellular networks to a central platform for continuous monitoring and analysis.
Cellular connectivity is vital for such monitoring systems because their elements are dispersed across large areas and placed in difficult locations like underground chambers and riverbanks with no access to other means of communications. Thanks to cellular networks, operators can get instant alerts when something is wrong and remotely adjust pumps or valves.
Many entities that manage water and wastewater systems use cellular connectivity, some of them for many years. A real-life example is Entwässerungsbetriebe Würzburg, a municipal utility that monitors the capacity, usage, and energy needs of 70 remote rainwater and stormwater pumping stations. The utility originally collected operating data continuously via 3G modems, and when 3G was phased out they upgraded to a 4G solution.
Cleaner Air Through Smarter Connectivity
There are also dedicated systems that focus on local environmental quality, such as air pollution or noise pollution, and may be extremely important for regulatory or operational reasons. They include networks of air quality sensors or noise monitors near roads and industrial sites.
Cellular connectivity makes these systems practical because sensors and controllers can be installed almost anywhere and provide continuous reporting. While usually transmitting small amounts of data per sensor, total data handled by these systems may add up because deployments can be dense, and add meteorology or multiple pollutants.
First Quantum Minerals deployed solar-powered, cellular-connected air quality sensors around its Kansanshi mine in Zambia to monitor dust and local air conditions. The sensors measure particulate matter and weather conditions and send the results over cellular networks to a central platform, so the mine can see problems in near real time. This supports compliance monitoring and faster response when air quality worsens and reduces impact on nearby communities.
Key Connectivity Requirements for Reliable Green IoT Performance
While specific connectivity requirements may differ depending on the use case, the most critical ones overlap for the majority of Green IoT deployments.
Coverage
Coverage is critical for Green IoT because these systems need to get reliable data and control from every device, including the ones placed in difficult locations, where signal may be weak. Good coverage keeps the devices connected without wasting battery on constant retries and reduces maintenance visits. Strong coverage also lets deployments scale without building additional infrastructure.
Access To Multiple Networks
Expansive as they are, Green IoT deployments don’t stay inside one carrier’s perfect coverage area. Devices may be installed in places where one network is weak, deployed across multiple countries, or even move around with equipment. Access to multiple networks lets a device connect to another available operator when the preferred network isn’t available or its signal isn’t strong enough. That reduces maintenance visits and makes large-scale deployments practical without needing different SIMs or local contracts in every region.
Latency
Some Green IoT systems need a fast response to be useful. If data arrives late, an energy system can miss a demand-response window, or a leak alert may come too late to prevent damage. Low latency is also critical for remotely controlled devices, such as pumps. Technically, cellular connectivity can provide latency as low as 1ms. However, actual latency would depend on your connectivity provider’s core network architecture, since the data needs to travel all the way to the provider’s data center before going to its destination.
Webbing’s Connectivity Solution for Green IoT
Webbing provides reliable, low-latency internet connectivity for Green IoT solutions that help reduce environmental impact, such as smart energy management, water, air quality, pollution and industrial efficiency monitoring.
Webbing’s connectivity solution guarantees global coverage, and through our ecosystem of over 600 mobile operators worldwide, devices can roam seamlessly across multiple carriers’ networks in every region. It solves the problem of weak spots that any mobile network may have and ensures full coverage and consistent connectivity for distributed deployments, even in hard-to-reach or remote locations.
Webbing is a full MVNO that has a fully redundant distributed core network infrastructure with data centers on every continent. It is well suited to support mission-critical, high-data consumption type of use cases and provides connectivity stability and low latency. It also allows for all types of localization, making it easy to comply with local regulation requirements even in heavily regulated markets.
Our eSIM solution ensures failover connectivity with the capability of using multiple mobile carrier profiles, easily changing carriers at any time, and an option to fall back from a failing profile to a different profile without any need to communicate with a remote server. Webbing also offers a portal to manage eSIMs throughout their lifecycle. It allows for defining business rules that govern the automatic profile swap process and provides visibility to profile usage and network events, to guarantee transparent connectivity. This helps enterprises scale Green IoT deployments, manage fleets in bulk, and monitor and control the data usage of each device.
Our solutions help enterprises overcome their connectivity problems and reduce time to market for global deployments, providing the benefits of roaming with multiple carrier options and seamless transition between carriers with a single SIM.
With Webbing, enterprises can reduce connectivity risk and speed up global Green IoT rollouts by using a single SIM solution with multi-carrier roaming and seamless transitions between networks.
Reach out today to learn more about Webbing’s connectivity solutions for Green IoT deployments.
