OT: Smart meters again

The various networks used by smartmeters are run by DCC, they sub it out.

If you're in Scotland, or the North of England, there's a dedicated

for awkward spots they can do mesh networking from your smart meter to another one (if any) that gets better signal nearby.

They can fit a boost antenna if necessary.

They had to do that for our VH as the signal here is so bad they had multiple goes at activating it. The guy couldn't maintain a mobile phone connection on his own phone for long enough to work through the activation procedure with his base on two different occasions.

It isn't uncommon for the electricity meter hovel to be quite well screened by adjacent white goods or metal fixtures like fuse boxes.

Not a hope in hell where we are then, the only network with reasonable coverage here is Three.

Many mobile masts just serve one operator.

Telefonica have a contract which requires them to cover 99.25% in the central and southern regions. That leaves out some people even in those regions. But the price of perfection is prohibitive - unless one subscribes to the view that no price is too high to provide a service to people in remote places (even when as is common these days they do so as a matter of choice rather than necessity).

Odd. The local mast definitely has O2 on it - it was O2 wot put it in. I put my iPhone next to the new meter, it gets 3 bars out of 4. I put my old clamshell there, it gets 5 out of 5.

can you restrict either phone to use 2G instead of 3G or 4G, that's what the meter wants.

My smart meter install is an ancient one, but I though with modern smets2 they were supposed to be able to locate the communications hub remote from the meter (e.g. upstairs by a window) to get better signal, while still talking to the meters and in-house display?

Didn't appear to matter - iPhone set on 2G, still 3 bars out of 4.

Tim Streater laid this down on his screen :

They can use which ever mobile network is receivable at the site of the meter.

Does DCC have the option to use networks other than O2? They don't say so and as someone mentioned earlier they should have 99.25% coverage vs

Andy Burns submitted this idea :

I can only relate what I was told by the installer who installed my my own meters, that they have several sims available to them. Now on my third pair, waiting for the fourth and hopefully final pair..

I don't want a smart meter! :-)

Chris Green submitted this idea :

Well you don't have to have one, until you have to have one :-)

All sounds a bit ad hoc and bodged to me. Surely they should have an aerial socket on the meter so they can shove it outside? Brian

Would you not expect the protocol to be network agnostic? To tie yourself to a subset seems short sighted in the extreme. However in my view, the infrastructure needs to be a shared resource, its a mess just now with lots of companies all wanting to build huge 5G masts in green spaces, when if they shared there would only need to be one. Brian

Sounds to me like the part of the meter which is not so smart is the way its supposed to work. Why on earth not multiplex it onto the mains cable to a device at the nearest sub station? OK it might cause interference but surely the data rates even if thousands of connections exist will be fairly low an spasmodic. Brian

Frequency bands possibly, your iphone may well support more than the smart meter does, ?

I live 200 metres from a combined 02/EE/VF mast, Smart meter shows 5 bars, though for three months it was unable to communicate with the 'mother ship'. Go figure!

Who are you, and what have you done with Brian?

Proposing data over mains cabling, whatever next ...