Smart meter can't connect despite 6 different comms hubs, is there anything else I can do to get the meter to connect?

There’s some confusion here. This is the situation as I understand it:

1. Vodafone has been awarded a 15-year contract to provide smart meter communication over its LTE 4G network. 
2. Telefonica (O2) currently holds the contract to provide 2G/3G communication in the CSP Central and South region; it expires in 2028.
3. The improvement to the WAN in the CSP North region involves a hybrid solution involving a communications hub (CH) capable of connecting via either the current Arqiva Long-Range Radio (LRR) network or, failing that,  an available 4G network, using a provider-agnostic SIM.
   This is apparently unrelated to the Vodafone arrangement at (1). The SIM in a SMETS1 CH was, I think, also provider-agnostic, cherry-picking the best signal it could get.
4. It’s not clear whether the pilot we’ve been invited to take part in is related to (1) or (3) or both, but in view of the requirement for having a CH already communicating, it’s most likely at this stage just to be testing the Vodafone solution (1).

Corrections, amendments and other comments welcome 🙂

The same email from DCC also mentioned this as another solution they are exploring for the north region:

“We’re also looking at using the Wi-Fi signal in the home, working towards a small technical pilot of this solution in late summer 2024.”

This would be a great solution since 99% of houses have some form of internet connection and there’s no reason why it couldn’t be used securely with the correct tech. 

I’ve also been a bit unclear whether the Coms Hub Pilot that a few of us have signed up to is primarily more about HAN or about WAN.

Reading it again it does talk briefly about 4G WAN. But it then goes on to talk mainly about HAN.

….. The trial will hopefully allow us to swap your standard smart meter comms hubs with a new one without needing to exchange/replace the entire smart metering system within your home.

 

In the future this capability will help us to exchange and replace existing comms hubs with newer dual band and 4g variants to overcome in-home challenges associated with poor or low signal. 

I though that coms hub only swaps were fairly routine these days, see the OP of this thread, so there must be more than just that to the pilot.

Two birds, one stone. 

• Dual band: using 838kHz instead of 2.4MHz for the HAN to help penetrate, say, multiple storeys in a block of flats.
• Dual mode: LRR or 4G for the WAN in the North region.

Perhaps one new generation of 4G hubs will come dual-band as standard. This won’t help those in the North region, unless they live (as many do) in houses with, say, thick stone walls. Those houses may or may not be in range of LRR, but might be helped by a different generation of dual-mode CH if LRR struggles to reach them.

Looks like the others beat me to it. :)

I’ll let you know if I have more thoughts.

LOL, the last place that I lived was originally built in 1604, in the shadow of our medieval castle and reusing the stone from it,  Such recycling of old structures was common back then.

As you can imagine the walls in my last place were pretty substantial, 3 to 4 feet thick in a lot them, so a smart meter HAN would probably have very little chance.

PS. What remains of the medieval castle standing, which is quite a bit despite the dressed stone being reused all over that part of the town, is still a  scheduled monument,  and there is even a famous poem about it by Wordsworth.
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1020455
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egremont_Castle

PS. And now you know where I live, at least the town that I chose to live in.

I’ll get some clarification for you @Nukecad 

Thanks @Emmanuelle_OVO 

However I think that I’ve already found the answers I was looking for and it does appear that this TCSO trial is about WAN and not HAN.

It is also mainly about the Central and South Regions, but should also include some trials in the North Region too.

I have posted what I have found, with a link and quotes, on the TCSO trial page itself:
 

Hey @Nukecad 

I’ve been advised it’s more about HAN but it’s about the process of transferring data across rather than the act of just changing the comms hub. 

As explained in the link, Trust Centre Swap Out (which is a Zigbee term), is about swapping the Comms Hub without having to recommission all the HAN Devices. The Comms Hub is the ‘Coordinator’ and ‘Trust Centre’ of the HAN, which means that when it is replaced, it has to restart the HAN and securely restore the Zigbee network key to all the HAN Devices. This is done by the Service User (Supplier) sending an 8.12.1 SRV (Restore HAN Device Log) to the new Comms Hub, which restarts the HAN and provides credentials to the Comms Hub for secure restoration of the network key to all the orphaned HAN Devices.