Network Repeater Installation for Smart Meters

Thanks for your post ​@martynjgreen. I hope you’re well, and a warm welcome to the OVO Forum.

I know that we install kit such as this for individual customers, but we don’t do any installations of antennas that would cover the WAN signal for an entire block, as the meters would be owned and supplied by separate companies.

​@Lukepeniket_OVO would you have any suggestions on this?

As a former radio engineer this is the correct approach from a user point of view but OVO or any other supplier won't have anything to do with this. If you buy a signal booster (make sure it's a legal version) it will boost the mobile phone and any other in-band signals in the basement including WAN. Any troubleshooting will be your issue. If it doesn't work then there is not much you can do about it so the purchase, running, maintenance and any engineering cost is at your risk.

What ​@Ben_OVO is talking about is an external antenna connection to each individual meter. What you will be doing is boosting the signal for all of them at the same time with no connection to any meter.

Peter 

Further to our excellent resident radio engineer’s post, I’d point out that in a building like yours, it’s common for a Building Distribution Operator (BNO) to take over responsibility for distribution from the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) from the main incomer to the individual dwellings. It sounds as if this is what you need to set up; the BNO could then make the necessary arrangements for ensuring that the SMWAN signal could reach all the meters, regardless of which supplier owns and manages them. The Wikipedia article might get you started on how to go about this, and the DNO may be able to advise. They might even be able to act as BNO; you’d have to ask them, but otherwise competent local contractor might be able to do it.  

I know OVO would not be responsible for undertaking the installation and it would be the network operators 

13 July 2026

Energy suppliers are extending smart metering Home Area Network connectivity in properties including tenement buildings where there are obstacles such as concrete floors between the apartment and the meter.

'Dual band' communications hubs serve many previously hard to reach properties. For the minority of properties where these cannot provide connectivity, the Alternative Home Area Network solution provides an additional smart metering HAN connectivity option for properties such as the higher floors of high-rise buildings. Finally, the Crowded Meter Room Resolution model is now available in buildings where meter room space constraints previously prevented installation of the Alt HAN solution.
 

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2026-07-03/15831/?utm
 

That is a typical parliamentary answer; whilst not wrong it doesn't fully answer the question that was asked.

For connection between the smart meter and the data collectors (DCC) over the Wide Area Network (WAN) it mentions Dual-band communications hubs which can allow Northern properties that can't connect to the smart meter Long Range Radio Network to connect via a mobile phone network instead - but only if they are in range of the mobile network.
EDIT- I appear to be wrong there, although I do know that dual LLR/Mobile capable communications hubs are being fitted apparently that is not what the DCC currently mean by a dual band hub.
https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/our-products/dual-band-comms-hubs/

Then It concentrates on the solution to the problem of the distance between the meter and the flat (possibly with concrete floors in between too) which us an issue for the Home Are Network (HAN) which connects a smart meter to the In Home Device (IHD). Alt-HAN is a proven solution for that, but doesn't work in all cases.

However your issue is neither of those.

Yours is a different problem of getting any existing WAN signals, whether that's LRR or Mobile, from outside the building and into the meter room.

Then you would probably also need Alt-HAN from each meter to each flat, which is where the Crowded Meter Room Resolution mentioed might be needed.

Hey all, some fantastic replies here from people who are much more informed than me. We do not have anything within OVO to support this, we only have our communications hubs supplied by the DCC and flying leads to reposition the CH withing 1m of the electric meter. 

Sorry!

​@Lukepeniket_OVO

It it possible to have a mesh solution? You provide comms to one meter and the others connect through it? 

Out of almost total ignorance on the subject I do know (or I think I know) that meters can mesh between themselves to get the data in and out.

Any info on that would vastly increase my knowledge of the subject even if it's completely wrong.

Many thanks 

Peter 

From what I gathered the issue here is geting the WAN through to a meter room enclosed by very thick walls, I suppose a basement meter room would also be similar.

So what would be needed is some kind of Alt-WAN and I'm not sure that exists. (If it did then I'd expect that Luke would know about it).

Off the wall thinking:

Personally I think I would experiment with an aerial mounted outside and coax cable run to a second aerial in the meter room. (Possibly with a powered signal booster in between). What kind of aerials would depend on if it's LRR or Mobile signal.

Of course that assumes that there is a smart meter in the meter room and that it is trying to connect to the WAN.

EDIT-

Looking back my thinking appears to be the same what was said in the OP, the difference being that mine is DIY.

“As I understand it a donor antenna can be installed on the outside of the building that picks up the network, and the repeater re-broadcasts it inside through a coverage antenna in the cellar.:

​@Nukecad

I totally agree with your last paragraph. I see that as a pragmatic, user-implemented solution which doesn't involve the supplier or DNO. Mobile phone signal boosters are inherently multiband so the antennas (especially LPA or LPD) are chosen for that look like a wedge of cheese (they aren't, I assure you) and are quite discreet. 

The antenna would need to match the signal though.

Looking into it a bit more the Arqiva LRR network in the North operates in the 400 MHz band (typically around 420 MHz) which is lower that the Mobile phone signals in the South , which depending on location are 700 MHz - 42 GHz.

The 700 MHz mobile signal is  used for wide-area 4G and 5G coverage, ideal for rural areas and deep indoor penetration.

It’s not really my field, but I would have thought that antennae may be available that will pull in both the LRR frequency and lower mobile frequencies.

PS. I’m just reading up some more on Dual-Band communication hubs, and it appears that I may have been wrong about them.
DCC says that they are dual-band for the HAN, ( 2.4 GHz Zigbee and  868 MHz for HAN) and not dual-band LLR/Mobile for the WAN
https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/our-smart-network/our-products/dual-band-comms-hubs/