Smart meters = yet more big brother

But lots of people don't have a fixed line phone and rely on smart phones.

Haven't seen one for ages. I just tell them thr reading when they email me and get an accurate updated bill immediately. then I pay it using the automated phone system.

I doubt a supplier would want to deploy a meter capable of trying to do that. One arrangement would be for the meter to send data on a regular, maybe weekly basis. Most home routers have NAT and that would likely stop a supplier initiating contact with a meter.

Energy? Control? WTF? If the government want to control your life, it will be via your internet connection. Your energy supply is nothing to do with it. Why do people worry about energy? What reason do you have for the government wanting to make your house dark? How would this give them any advantage whatsoever?

The place a wire around the meter.

Go to the nearest stream and "steal" water in a bucket. That'll tell them!

I can do that with a simple device clipped onto the live tail. It tells me how much I'm using now, how much I'm being charged, etc, etc.

So what? The overall cost will remain identical.

It's dressed up as Demand Management now.

AIUI you are given a choice on the update intervals from monthly down to evry 30 mins.

uPNP

You think one SMS message per month costs more than sending a bloke in a van to knock on doors?

My village hall supplier (EDF) has just written to me to advise me that they read it every 30 minutes (via a mobile network) and that I can request a different frequency, i.e. daily or monthly, if I so desire!

Peter

eon took the opposite approach, default one reading per month.

Do they actually send the data every 30 minutes, or just record it but send it in bulk less frequently?

i think they send every 30 minutes