Upcoming Smart Meter Comms Hub Pilot

Probably contractual reasons. Arqiva is/was supposed to have exclusive rights over CSP North while Telefonica is/was supposed to have exclusive rights over CSP Central and CSP South based on how the contracts were awarded via tendering.

In practice, CSP Central and South are migrating to Vodafone as part of the 4G Upgrade and the future of the Arqiva solution isn’t fully known right now.

Just an update on my previous post on this thread. Octopus have, this week, installed a SKU2 cellular comms hub and T2 aerial for me in Cumbria (after all the Arqiva LRR options failed) and everything appears to be working fine.

The ironic thing is that the guy from SMS who did the original LRR Standard 420 comms hub installation that failed to commission back in April said that I should request a SKU2 comms hub with T2 aerial. This sounded like BS as I had done some due dilligence and knew about the north/south divide. When I contacted OE’s frontline customer support about this they denied it was possible and when I questioned the installer’s competence for making the suggestion I was asked if I wanted to raise a complaint - no, I just wanted a functional system! My problem was passed to OE’s meter specialists team but even then the suggested resolution was not initially forthcoming.

The installer who has just fitted my SKU2 said that she had fitted a number of these in the area.

So the next big question is what is going to happen up here when the Telefonica Virgin Media/O2 2G/3G contract is up and the 2G/3G signal closed down? Is the Vodafone 4G contract going to cover those of us in the north?

During my recent discussions with OE I was asked if I would like to wait until some time in 2025 and have a Wi-Fi comms hub fitted, that is currently under development (initial trials dates have slipped from Autumn 2024 to Spring 2025, with customer roll-out later in the year...), rather than the time limited 2G/3G cellular one. Looks like some way around GCHQ’s security concerns regarding strategic critical infrastructure may have been overcome.

Hi,

I’d like to volunteer for this, if eligible. 
 

You’re not the first to enjoy this experience, especially in your part of the world. It makes sense, really; there’s no great impenetrable wall separating the CSP regions, so there must be a grey area on the border that is served by both Arqiva and Telefónica. Your friendly engineer must be bending the rules a bit, though; let’s hope she doesn’t end up in trouble for using her initiative.

It will be interesting to see how this works out. Network security has moved forward a lot over the decade or so since the rules were made. I just wonder how long it will be before some teenager in his bedroom manages to break in - besting DCC (and by extension GCHQ) would be a very large feather in his (hopefully) white hat. 

There’s lots of jargon-laden detail about DCC’s work on the smart meter network on their Network updates pages.

Hey ​@ObsidianWalker 

Can you please private message me with your name, address, email, OVO account number & your consent your happy for the team to contact you in regards to this trial.

I’ll then get you added to the list 😊