Can a smart meter install disrupt your broadband connection and mobile signal?

Hi ​@shetland ,

Generally, it should not. However, sometimes things will go weird for a couple of hours as everything settles down - it should be fine after that.

The EDMI box in your screenshots is the communications hub. At first sight, it’s a standard one operating in the 420 MHz band for the WAN, so probably connecting to an antenna on the Bressay TV mast. Some customers in Shetland hidden from Bressay may already have been fitted with comms hubs using a 4G SIM, but we’ve yet to see what that looks like. Anyway, transmissions at 423 MHz aren’t likely to interfere with anything else.

It’s a different question with the HAN, which operates in the 2.4 GHz band, the same used by many wireless gizmos around the home - including garage door openers, baby alarms - and wireless routers. The meter will be trying to update the In-Home Display with usage data and tariffs, so yes - more data than usual over the HAN in the period immediately following installation. There may be some interference as the various devices try to settle on different 2.4 GHz channels, but as Blastoise says, it should eventually settle down. 

I’m inclined to think that the mobile phone problems are unrelated and coincidental, but you never know. 

If you get the WiFi Analyser app which looks like the image below then you can see where your router is and if there is any competing traffic

Routers normally default to auto selecting the clearest channel. If set mine to be on Channel 13 to stop it hopping around.

Give it a go to see if anything is unusual.

Peter

Actually… By using Channel 13 you’re actually causing more problems on that graph boss! It’s causing MORE interference because of channel clashes!

You must use 1, 6 or 11 based on that environment. Based on that graph, you’ll want 11 or Auto.

I’m thinking that everyone may have jumped in a bit to quickly/deeply talking about interference and analyzing the various radio signals etc.

OK that is what ​@shetland asked, but I believe the explanation is much more simple.

Had a new smart meter fitted, right afterwards, our broadband ADSL wasn’t working and mobile phones, for 2 hours.

The power will have been turned off while the engineer changed the meter - and so your router/hub would have no power - and so your broadband would have been disconnected while the power was turned off.
So not ‘right afterwards’ - you would have lost broadband right at the start of the job.

THEN - Once the power was back on your router/hub would reboot and would reconnect to your Internet Service Provider, and  it would then have done some line checks and possibly router software/firmware updates which (if happening) would take more time while you had no connection.

As for the mobile phones - When you say the mobile phones weren’t working do you in fact just mean that they wouldn’t connect to the internet over wifi?
Did you try changing to using 3G/4G data instead of wifi?

You can reset your router/hub from a browser on your computer, but the easiest way to reset is simply to turn the hub off at the mains plug and then turn it back on again.

The router had its latest update a few years ago now. :-)

They are all manual activated anyhow.

It doesn’t usually take it 2 hours to get connected.

There is a backup mobile SIM router too, and that woudln’t connect either.

I coudln’get a connection on two 4G mobile phones either to a mobile signal.

Yep, I tried the, wait half an hour, turn router off, wait a few minutes, turn it on again approach, that often works.

After doing that for an hour, I left it, and another hour later, all was fine.

Since then, I think its been fine, though varioius wifi items around the house have been playing up a little, for a little while and then fine again.

The Smart meter I was told is set up to send updates every 30 minutes, so maybe that is causing an issue, perhaps when its all settled in, I’ll get that changed to every hour and see if it makes any noticable difference.

It well have been a coincidence, or it might not, hence I thought best to ask here, and see if it is a common thing to happen or not.

If it is common, then it might be an issue every half an hour to disrupt other local wifi/etc. which is a bit more of an issue, since I don’t want to stand around in the dark waiting for Alexa to recover enough so it can turn on that smart light for me !

I wonder if there is a handy tool for monitoring wifi activity to spot this ?

And when does the smart meter phone home, randomly, or on the hour, every hour ?

I have a feeling its got be somewhat random, or the airwaves would be clogged with everyone doing it at once. :-)
 

Smart Meters only usually speak when they’re spoken to - and the main comms back to the WAN happen overnight for sending readings etc. HAN stuff runs every 10 seconds to keep the Meters, IHD and Comms Hub in sync with each other.

You can use tools like Ubiquiti WiFiman to see what’s going on via your phone. If you have an iPhone however, you’ll probably need the Ubiquiti WiFiman Wizard companion device to actually see what’s going on due to Apple’s restrictions.

Actually, I have less problems on 13 than selecting something else or Auto. Don't ask me why and it may be counterintuitive or go against all the rules or logic but it's just the way it is in my location. Every radio environment is unique and my screenshot is a static version of what is happening because I'm guessing everyone else is on auto.

First, Nukecad will have realized that an ADSL modem doesn’t need mains power, does it? (Landline phones are supposed to work even during a power cut, as those who are losing them are always reminding us.)

The smart meter records usage every 30 minutes and stores the records for 13 months. If you say you’re happy to share your 30-minute usage data, OVO will request a day’s worth once a day over the WAN. It used to be always soon after midnight, but now with so many more choosing this option, it can be 24 or more hours later. 

The meter will be sending instantaneous power readings to the IHD over the HAN every 10 seconds. These tiny bursts can interfere with, and the transmission be disturbed by, other devices using the 2.4 GHz band as I mentioned yesterday. They will all find the channel with the least traffic eventually.  

So yes, I still think your mobile signal outage will have been coincidental. I don’t suppose it’s unusual, is it? (Mine drops at least once every 24 hours, soon after midnight, and sometimes two or three times during the day.)