Upcoming Smart Meter Comms Hub Pilot

Great question ​@JFisher22 

Seem’s like the main issue and reason we’re currently unable to offer any form of comms hub testing in the Northern regions, from what I’m being told, is because of the strict ownership of comms hubs by the Data Communications Company (DCC) there. 

Bradley,

OK I hear you but that's not what you said in your first reply to me was it. This is a big issue. The DCC are unaccountable to customers and think that northern radio hubs are working to acceptable levels. As recently exposed by the BBC panorama programme there is an accountability gap. Over 3'500'000 homes without working smart meters is a big problem the real figure is probably closer to 7'000'000.

Given the woefull & inadequate service and the head in the sand attitude towards fixing it by Arquiva who provide the network maybe OVO could lead from the front on behalf of their customers. I noticed on panorama Octopus fitted a cellular comms hub in a northern area (Glasgow again) to sort out a customers long standing connection issues so it can be done it seems.

Hi JFisher22

I’m with Octopus in the northern area (Cumbria) and have been trying to get hooked up to the Arqiva LRR for almost a year now. Tried all the fixes - passive dipole repeater, etc all to no avail.

Got an appointment this Friday (6th Dec) for them to come and fit a cellular comms hub and T2 aerial. 2G/3G (and 4G) cellular signal is not good here, so I will have to apply a little ingenuity to extend the 2m tail on the T2 aerial in order for it to be located up in the loft. I’ve previously drilled the kitchen wall and routed some 50 ohm low impedence coax up the wall and onto the roof for the passive repeater trial. So it is just a matter of snipping the T2 aerial tail in the middle, fitting SMA connectors (same as the aerial is fitted with for connection to the comms hub) to the cut ends and coupling to each end of my existing coax with appropriate adaptors (SMA(F) to SO239).

Off on holiday for a week on the 7th, so will not be able to report back any success (or otherwise...) for a while.

DCC has accepted that LRR isn’t working as well as it was intended to. There’s signs that R&D has started on Dual-Mode Comms Hubs for the Northern Territory that can run both Cellular and Long-Range Radio so that whichever one gets the best signal is the one that gets used.

It’ll be a while before they’re ready, but my understanding is that they’re working on it.

It’s good that there is change afoot with the dual frequency comms hub in the pipeline but how long 1 year 2, 3?

There is a simpler solution. In the meantime fit cellular hubs where they work, in the northern area where there is a clear historical issue with LRR reception. In these cases there is no need to wait for the new duel hub as the LRR bit won’t work anyway.

why a system that doesn’t work where there is terrain shielding and won’t penetrate stone walls was rolled out in a landscape dominated by these attenuating factors I just can’t fathom.

WelI I could have a good guess…….

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 😊