Smart Meter Signal - Isle of Mull

Noel - thank you very much for your comments and whilst it was as I feared in that actually getting a working meter will be difficult your comments have made very clear what is needed / possible etc so thank you very much for that.

As you say we’ll continue to submit meter readings and if an engineer does become available soon (unlikely from my experience) then determine if we have any better options.

Charles

Hi ​@Charles Harford-Cross 

Sorry to hear about the smart meter issues, and thanks ​@Firedog for your helpful advice on this.

If you have a metal meter box then this can indeed cause signal issues that will prevent a meter from sending reads automatically. To confirm, meter boxes and housing are not something that our engineers are trained or insured to change, and they fall under the responsibility of the customer. If you did decide to change the meter housing to a plastic box, then these can be found online at merchants such as Travis Perkins.

It sounds like you’ll need a case raised to our Smart Support team to diagnose the best next steps to take to get your meter in comms. If you contact our Support Team they will ask you to carry out a ‘Smart Meter Health Check’ before raising a case, so I recommend carrying this out yourself before contacting Support. The instructions for this can be found in this post:

• Second generation (S2) Aclara smart meter health check (SMHC) Tutorial

Once we have diagnosed the issue we will be able to look into booking an appointment for you. As ​@Firedog has mentioned, this may take a while, but we should be able to get you booked in through our Highlands and Islands booking process. Sometimes, an engineer may not be able to commission a meter due to background system issues. It might be the case that another engineer will be able to come and commission the meter and get it working. If you contact our Support Team they will have access to the job report, and will be able to tell you what we can do to get this fixed.

I hope this is resolved for you soon. In the meantime, you may be able to take manual readings. Instructions for doing this can be found in the post I linked above.

Hello Firedog,

I copied the following from your comments:-

There are thousands of customers across Scotland and elsewhere whose old radio-controlled meters will have to be exchanged before this summer, when the radio signal will be switched off. 
 

What will replace the old radio signal ?

I live in the north of England and not aware of any changes.

Hello ​@Robert44. Do you know that you have an RTS-controlled meter? If you do, your supplier should have been in contact by now to tell you that your meter will have to be exchanged. If they haven’t, give them a call.

There is no replacement for the radio signal, which tells the heating system in the house when to switch on and off. The old meter will be exchanged for a smart meter, which will do the same job but at pre-determined times, not variable like they are with RTS. 

More information: Radio Teleswitching Service | OVO  

Thanks Firedog, I do not have a Smartmeter or RTS. I live in a block of flats with a communal electric meter room. About 30% of the flats have Smartmeters but the majority have issues with the signal. I have requested the energy companies if I can speak with the local installers but they will not allow this. So I am sticking with the old meter until I can eventually have a detailed discussion with an installer at my property.

I’m afraid the Meters are property of the respective Suppliers so for legal reasons only they are allowed to touch them.

In that case, you don’t have anything to worry about, at least in the short term. Your meter will eventually have to be exchanged for a smart one when it reaches end-of-life, but that could be years away.

It would be interesting to hear what ‘issues with the signal’ means. In blocks of flats, it’s common for the meter to have trouble connecting to the In-Home Display (IHD) every smart meter comes with. It’s also common for meters hidden away in a basement to have difficulty calling home to the supplier. It would be interesting to learn if there’s at least one meter in the meter room that’s communicating with its mothership - if it is, there’s hope for the others, too. There are also solutions for those whose IHDs can’t make contact with their meter, for example this one.

The vast majority of the electric meter DCC’s show the WAN and HAN lights operating on off every 5 seconds. When speaking to residents they advise having to send readings manually or getting the companies to read them.

I understand that Alt-Han is a way forward to read the HAN signal but can it do anything for the WAN. I don’t see any Alt-Han equipment in the meter room.

I also know that one residents Smartmeter (E-On) is working. This one is located about 2m above floor level.

Also some DCC’s are mounted about 1m away from the Smartmeter. Why would that be ?

Thanks for your replies and advice

[When you mention DCC, I think you mean CH - Communications Hub. DCC is the company tasked with providing the smart meter network, the WAN.]

If the WAN and HAN lights are flashing at 5 second intervals, both networks are operating. It is strange for a CH to be in communication with the network but not transferring data as expected. It could be a question of account settings for the affected customers.

AltHAN is only an aide to get the HAN working. The two networks are completely different and separate.

It is possible to locate the CH up to 1.5 m away from the meter itself by means of a flying lead. An installer might do this if he can see that it will make a difference, e.g. by avoiding a signal barrier.  

If there is one meter with a good connection, others can piggy-back on that connection - a so-called mesh solution. This requires all the meters to be meshed to have different CHs, so it’s up to DCC to organize. I’m not sure how straightforward this would be when there are different suppliers involved. DCC supplies the CHs, but it’s up to suppliers to fit them. 

I live in the north of England so is the Mesh solution available in areas where LRR is used ?

I’m afraid Mesh Comms Hubs aren’t available in the Northern Territory - LRR doesn’t support them, sorry

Thanks Blastoise186, I can get a telephone signal in the meters room but many residents report issues with lack of communication with the energy supplier. In areas where issues occur then it would be much better if residents were given the choice. I also noticed in the Panorama programme (Nov. 2024) a Glasgow customer was eventually put on the telephone signal by Octopus.

It’s long and dry tendering/contract stuff I’m afraid - Arqiva won the tendering process for the Northern Territory (aka CSP North) while Telefonica won the tendering process for Central and Southern Territory (aka CSP Central and CSP South). The exclusivity thing in each deal meant that basically no-one else could operate in the area.

Arqiva doesn’t use mobile phone signals - they use radio towers (think Freeview TV signals and you’ve basically got the idea) so regardless of how good your phone signal is, if you’re up in Glasgow (for example), it makes no difference.

There are upcoming changes though which may fix this. CSP Central/South will be migrating to Vodafone as part of the 4G Comms Hub upgrade and future CSP North Comms Hubs will potentially run Dual-Mode LRR/Cellular so that whichever method works is the one the unit will grab.