GW201 FAQ
Roles: Admin, Technician, and Billing Manager
Last updated: November 2023
The Cellular Gateway GW301's integrated cellular features are made possible due to an onboard cellular modem. This integrated cellular modem is not included on the older LCD Gateway.
A commercial grade external cellular modem can provide a cellular data connection to the GW201 where needed. The additional integrated cellular features of the GW301 are only available by making the upgrade to the new model.
The LCD Gateway is only compatible with the included 12v power supply.
If an LCD Gateway is installed outside, it must be installed in an appropriate enclosure. See the NextCentury NEMA Enclosures document for more information.
Once reads are uploaded to the Cloud, they are kept on the Gateway for an additional 24 hours and then cleaned up and cleared out of the Gateway memory. If the Gateway is not able to connect to the Cloud to upload/sync reads, it will store them until a connection can be made and a successful upload occurs. The GW201 and GW301 models have sufficient storage to run an average-size property offline for about a year.
The LCD Gateway requires one of the following data/internet connection types:
- Ethernet
- WiFi
The chosen connection must provide a speed of at least 1mb/sec. A 150 mb monthly data transfer is to be expected on an average 500 unit property. Any firewall or proxy present on some networks must include policies allowing the Gateway to communicate with the NextCentury servers. (Contact support@nextcenturymeters.com for more details.)
A "Gateway Connection Error" alert is created after a Gateway has not connected to the NextCentury servers for more than 72 hours.
The "line of site" range or the LCD Gateway (and Cellular Gateway) is +4 miles.
Note
This range is for "line-of-site" measurement with a direct free-space path between the two points. Actual ranges of installed equipment will be reduced depending on the installation location, building material, and other RF obstructions in the environment in which it operates.
Yes. To remotely reset the Gateway, navigate to the Equipment/Network page and select the Gateway tile. The tile will expand to show specific information about the Gateway. Next, click on Action (bottom blue strip of the expanded Gateway tile) and select Reset Gateway.
There are two LED light indicators on the LCD Gateway.
- The top LED (Power LED) indicates the power state
- Green: powered on, but not yet connected to our Cloud servers
- Blue: powered on and connected to our Cloud servers
- Red: power loss
- Blinking blue: equipment programming in progress
The bottom LED (RF Signal LED) indicates the type of traffic going through the Gateway.
- Green blinks: Gateway is currently processing messages over RF from NextCentury equipment
- Blue blinks: internal messages going between the coordinator and the Gateway
- Red blinks: indicates that the Gateway is processing messages from 3rd party devices
- Purple: the Gateway is in debug mode. Please contact NextCentury Support.
Clients may use any 3rd party surge protector, however, we have both an automatic resetting fuse and diodes for protecting the Gateway and Repeaters from surges. The wall power supply also has built-in protection. If a large surge does occur, it should take out the power supply before the Gateway or Repeater is damaged.
When a Gateway loses power, it will immediately use its reserve power to save and close ongoing operations and send a power-loss alert.
The Gateway has built-in self-healing technologies, so when power is restored, it will boot up and automatically reconnect to the NextCentury web server.
The database for one Gateway has been tested with up to 2,000 Transceivers.
The NextCentury system features automatic network balancing. The Gateway is able to dynamically adjust the check-in interval for a single Transceiver in order to balance the communication of all equipment on a property. This drastically reduces dropped messages and allows the equipment to service much larger properties.
A smartphone or cellular hotspot device can be useful for providing a temporary WiFi connection but are unreliable as a long-term solution. Many consumer-grade cellular hotspot devices are not designed for persistent device connection. When used with the NextCentury Gateway, the hotspot device may drop the internet connection after a few days, or even hours, and require an on-site visit to restart.
The MAC address can be found by navigating to the Network Settings on the Gateway LCD screen. Then select either Wifi or Ethernet, and the applicable MAC address will be displayed.