11:35 a.m. - Not too long ago, 90 percent of Bismarck's water customers were billed via the land-based telephone system serving their house or business.

No, it wasn't the city's utility department calling with the bill, but rather your water meter calling the utility department and transmitting information on how much water was used over a specific interval via the phone line.

But much like the computer you bought last year, the land-based phone line water billing system appears to be sinking into obsolescence as land-based phone lines are being eschewed in favor of cellular phones.

"We have about 16,500 customers and about 14,000 of those are residential," utilities director Keith Demke said. "At one point we were down to less than 1,500 meters that had to be read manually. Now we're in that 4,000 range."

Demke figures about 75 percent of city water customers have land-based phone lines, down from the 90 percent of just a couple of years ago.

"It seems like we're losing a 100 or so a month, in the neighborhood of a 1,000 a year," Demke added. "I don't know if this trend is going to continue, I really haven't done a lot of research on the dynamics. But we're at the point of having to do something."

The city began installing the present system about seven or eight years ago and continued to phase it in. A transmitter was installed at a house or business and it uses the phone lines to transmit water use information to city computers at regular intervals.

"Yes, we're surprised by what's happening, otherwise we wouldn't have done it. Who would have guessed 10 years ago we wouldn't have a land-based phone line system?" Demke said. "But that's what happens with a rapidly evolving technology. We're so used to buying things that last forever, but when you get into the technology area … look how long a computer lasts before it becomes obsolete. Cell phone technology came along at a much faster rate than predicted and people are moving away from land-based lines."

The biggest problem the utilities department is having with the declining use of land-based phone lines is finding the people-power to go out and manually read meters.

"It's hard to put a monetary figure on what it costs us, but it does mean we have to divert labor away from other things," Demke said. "We cut down on the number of meter readers, and though we do have a couple, they alone can't get the number of meters we have to read done in a month."

Demke says the city utilities department has been in some very preliminary discussions with Montana-Dakota Utilities which is considering use of radio transmitters for its customers.

"We've been talking about combining forces and I think there is some economy of scale if we join on a radio-based system to read all the meters. But this has just been discussion and I think we'll know more in a couple of weeks," Demke said.

"I don't think what we're going to propose will be a wholesale replacement," Demke added. "Where land-based telephone lines are working we'll allow them to continue to work. We'll switch over the 25 percent where the new technology is naturally migrating."

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 701-250-8255 or gordon.weixel@bismarcktribune.com.)