Are OVO rolling out DBCH meters in the Essex area?

Hi @ROCKFACE2004, 

A lovely technical question here. I’ve got some technical answer for you from our smart meter experts:

The G470-672 operates on 2.4GHz whilst the G470-682 operates on 868MHz. You do need a Dual Band Comms Hub (DBCH) to be able to utilise any device that communicates over 868MHz. However, this customer's situation doesn't necessarily mean Dual Band/868MHz devices are required, it might just be that the gas meter has not joined the home area network (HAN). Depending on the circumstances, a fix could be carried out remotely rather than sending an engineer out.

What this customer has said is true though, it's not just distance that can have an impact on how successfully smart meters join the HAN, the material in the walls and other obstructions can impact the penetration of the signal. Whilst we have dual band compatible devices available to us to resolve some range/penetration issues, we do have Alt-HAN on the horizon which may help fix HAN issues where even dual band/868MHz cannot. To answer the customer's question directly though, here is a list of gas meters that can do 868MHz (each would require a dual band comms hub to utilise 868MHz):

• G470-682 (868MHz only)
• EDMI GS-68B (double band device - 868MHz and 2.4GHz is possible, one or the other, not both in parallel)
• Flonidan G4SDZV-2 (double band device)
• Flonidan G4-6UDZV-2 (double band device)
• GWI G4-MG-SE-GM-V2-DB (double band device)

I would guess that this customer's gas meter may be falling into our "non-communicating" pot, which means someone will be trying to diagnose and if possible, resolve the issue.