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:
 

• Upcoming Smart Meter Comms Hub Pilot News

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. 

Nukecad wrote:

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:
 

• Upcoming Smart Meter Comms Hub Pilot News

 

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.

Hello,

I hope that this is helpful for others in the “north”…

...It took 6 engineer visits, but eventually the comms to my smart meter is now working. I posted details here:

https://homeeneryefficiencyukreallife.blogspot.com/2024/09/smart-meter-3-my-smart-meter-journey.html

A neighbour was having problems with his smart meter comms; Ovo is his supplier and had made several visits to try to get it working. He shared the above link and the solution also worked for him.

It would be interesting to hear if this works for others.

Best regards

Dave

​@daveharding Thanks very much for that informative link. Success stories are always good reading!

​@Bradley_OVO Can we make sure everyone involved is aware of this possibility? I keep mentioning it in situations when it looks like it might help, but we rarely hear any feedback.

Agree with ​@Firedog - ​@daveharding We love a good success story around here and this one is very exciting!

Yes ​@Firedog - I’ll pass this on internally to the Smart Operations team and beyond! Thanks for the flag 👍

Hi ​@Bradley_OVO,

Thank you for your kind response. 

I am intrigued that this option is not already widely known at Ovo/with Ovo customers in the “North”. I just stumbled upon another Ovo forum post:

• “S2 smart meters in the Northern Territory using the Arqiva network - why isn't the meter able to connect to the WAN?”

In the discussion one customer reported that the standard FL100 cable length did not work, but the customer/installer was able to extend the cable further and get the comms working.

Surely Ovo could save a tonne of money by having the FL100 as part of the standard install kit/process where comms does not work 1st time.

How many engineer visits would that save?

How much does each engineer visit cost Ovo?

Why not roll out the extended cable length solution and make Ovo the go to supplier in the “North” (for people with EV’s, solar, etc)?

Just my thoughts

Dave

​@daveharding Great points and I agree, a lot to be achieved and streamlined for all involved.

I’ve forwarded this on to a few stakeholders that work within the engineering and smart metering areas of the business to see if this can be of assistance to us. 

I’ll respond here if I hear anything back 😊

Hello, my smart meter signal comes from winter hill also. Where is your property? 

Hi,

How do you find out where the base station is located? None of the engineers who visited me knew where the base station is…

...it strikes me that if this information were publicly available then it would help engineers optimise signal strength.

...have you found where the North Region base station location information is published?

As it happens we live not far from Winter Hill, but not in line of sight.

Best regards

Dave

DCC doesn’t like giving that information out for security reasons. All we can say is that their equipment is on most of the main towers in the Northern Territory and that line of sight is not required.

… with great difficulty!

The location of the SMWAN antennae  seems to be a closely guarded secret, but apparently Arqiva mount them on some of their TV transmission towers. It’s likely that there will be one on each of the towers north of Manchester on this map, but whether that includes Winter Hill and/or Emley Moor is anyone’s guess. The boundary between the Northern CSP and the Central and Southern CSP regions is necessarily fluid, and we’ve heard of customers in Lancashire who couldn’t connect to the Arquiva (LRR) network but could to the O2 (cellular) one. To frustrate detection still more, a particular property’s TV aerial may well be pointing towards a different repeater mast closer than the nearest full-fat one, but there’s not likely to be a WAN antenna on that mast.

We’ve also heard of otherwise dodgy connections being secured simply by shifting the communications hub a metre up, down or sideways by means of a flying lead - that’s all it takes in some situations.