My thoughts exactly. B-)
And judging by the density of 11 kV substations down in town I guesstimate each one only serves a 100 households or so. You'd then either have to have the mains wiring transponder kit there (and how does that connect back?) or have some form of RF bypass to get the signal to the 33 kV primary substation (that does have a telemetry link back to the DNOs control centre).
In our case the 11 kV substation is about 10 yds away but the 11 kV hop back to 33 kV primary is about 3 miles of open wire "aerial", with allsorts of stubs and bit's connected. Other places could have the best part of ten miles, so you'd have to shout pretty loud over that open wire to get a reliable connection...