Difficulty due to RTS meter being inside beside fuse boxes and not outside in main meter box?

​@Firedog Thanks for contributing, that’s an interesting case you make in defense of OVO there. However it does not help our situation which is entirely not of our making. The whole situation all seems terribly last minute / 11th hour and we surely cannot be unique to this particular setup throughout the UK.

Surely our type of setup was flagged many months ago with hundreds it not thousands of other properties, yet we are told to await on an impending solution. Irrespective of whether some of the RTS meters in our block were removed years ago matters not. We are in the situation we find ourselves in due to, I beleive, lack of forward thinking and planning on behalf of OVO.

Customer care and satisfaction is critiucal to the operation of any business and the fact it has taken us to have to come to this forum and seek advice, and to be given the kind assistance and information from ​@Lukepeniket_OVO, I think is poor on the part of OVO as an organisation. This could all have been dealt with in a much cleaner and concice manner from OVO, keeping the customer informed all the way. It has pretty much been finger in the air stuff.

As for the switch of being phased out in different areas, what if our area is one of the ones to be swtiched off. We have no idea if that will be the case or not. Are we just meant to gamble and hope for the best.

‘Months’ is a short time in the life of developments like this. I know that OVO’s metering labs spent years (3?) trying to cobble together a smart meter solution for complicated tariffs like THTC. It was eventually released for a carefully-managed deployment in August last year. I can’t say when the difficulty with RTS units remote from the meter came to light, but the first we heard of it here in the forums was sometime in the spring. I think the problem is that meter engineers aren’t electricians, but re-connecting RTS-controlled equipment to a newly-installed smart meter will need skills that meter engineers just don’t have. 

There have been few details revealed of the phased switch-off. It’s fairly certain that the service will be switched off first to small groups of customers where most of the RTS systems have been dismantled. This will give valuable experience for suppliers and distributors to show what happens to those households that haven’t yet been upgraded. 

There are probably not many households worrying about heating not working properly at the moment. Hot water is more problematic, but it’s probably no different from the home of my youth where the immersion heater was switched on and off as required. There will undoubtedly be stragglers left behind after 1 October, but suppliers will be falling over themselves to get them sorted out as quickly as they can.

Also worth noting that most RTS setups had failsafe functionality - it can run temporarily even without the control signal.

What we can’t say however, is how reliable said failsafe is for each individual setup and/or how long it’d work for without breaking. It’s best not to rely on it long term.

​@Firedog I think you have just hit the nail on the head there ‘I think the problem is that meter engineers aren’t electricians’… take from that what you will. Having ran my own business for over 22 years I know what I take from it.

Daughter arranged for her Prepayment / THTC meter to be changed  but they said they can't  do it because she has a remote RTS

Now she is getting  letters about the posed switch off 

Any ideas of the next move ?

Cheers 

Hi ​@Skeck ,

I don’t think the Remote RTS solution is ready juuuust yet - but it’s coming soon. Hang in there for a bit longer!

Cheers 

As long as they don't  switch her area off before tge solution is available 

These mass ‘don't delay’ communications do make for a dilema though.

Those with things like remote RTS are told-

“The kit needed to replace your particular RTS set up isn't quite ready yet, so you can ignore those ‘standard’  hurry-up communications”.

How is the average customer supposed to discern if it's a message that can/should be ignored or one saying “The new kit needed is now ready so book an appointment”?

Hey ​@Skeck,

Welcome to the OVO Online Community, I can see our community members have given some helpful advice here. 

Just wanted to add the following:

https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/customers/the-radio-teleswitch-service-switch-off-what-you-need-to-know/

From 30 June 2025, the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) will start to phase out as it is reaching the end of its operational life. RTS is also known as Dynamic Teleswitch Service (DTS). The switch-off will affect energy customers who have an RTS meter in their home, and may mean their heating and hot water supply stops functioning as normal.

There will not be a mass switch off of the RTS national signal on 30 June 2025. From this date, a phase out will begin of the RTS functionality for small groups of meters at a time. Customers will be informed directly. 
 

Hope this helps.