Smart meter working after migration from E.On to E.On Next but not being read

I have a new second generation smart meter, fitted by E.On, which is working perfectly in my home but is not being read by E.On Next. Automatic reads stopped being sent over 41 days ago forcing me to submit a manual meter read yesterday to avoid having an estimated bill foisted on me. How can it take longer for my E.On smart meter to be connected on the grid to E.On next than it would if I had moved lock, stock and barrel to a completely different energy supplier than from one E.On company to another? Considering how long E.On has had to plan migrating customers from E.On to E.on Next this seems very unsatisfactory and sloppy business practice to me, particularly as there was no notification that smart meters could possibly end up disconnected for weeks at a time after the forced move.

It was only by accident when looking at my account on the E.On Next website that I discovered any of this had happened.

(I don't think the E.On Next site is a patch on the original E.On site to be honest.)

I have emailed the company about this matter and had no acknowledgement to date of receipt of my email as was the case with E.On, but assume it was delivered and might possibly be read by someone one day.

Any idea how long it might be before my smart meter send meter reads automatically and transparently to E.On Next?

I've been a continuous E.On customer for nearly four years but have to say that I am VERY disappointed with the way my involuntary move from E.On to E.On Next took place and was conducted. If E.On Next doesn't do better than this in future the company will lose a significant volume of dissatisfied customers I'm afraid.

I can only agree with everything you've posted here. I'm in the same situation - my smart meters were working perfectly with "old E.On", now they don't talk to E.On Next or to my little display box thingy, so I'm back to sending manual reading again. The website is, frankly, rubbish. I wanted to check whether I'm on the cheapest current tariff - gave up in the end. The amounts, and timings, of when I'm being charged for fuel seem totally random, and I've no idea whether my monthly direct debit is too high, too low or the right amount. Everything was so much easier before the changeover.

Hi, @Sheffielder

Thanks for taking the time to post. If you contact us via face book or twitter or email us at hi@eonnext.com. We can answer those questions for you.



Sam

My understanding is that it can take around six weeks for control of S2 Meters to be transferred between suppliers, however this is based on when the SMETS Commands that initiate the transfer process are sent to the meters, rather than when the supply is moved over. If E.On didn't send them at the same time your account moved over, it's likely to cause additional delays. Unfortunately, even with my knowledge there's nothing I can do to speed this up.

There's also no way for the receiving supplier to initialise the transfer process either, because that would otherwise create a huge security flaw where almost anyone could theoretically seize control of Smart Meters randomly and without the real supplier being aware. For this reason, the SMETS Commands to release control and start the transfer have to be issued by the relinquishing supplier because no-one else has the ability to authenticate them. The timescales for this can vary wildly depending on the supplier, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a huge backlog being generated by the mass-migration - especially because there are unrelated migration projects across all suppliers to transfer all S1 meters to the Data Communications Company (DCC) right now... And there's probably over 10 million of those being migrated over several years. It takes a long time to do all that number crunching.

Because E.On Next is considered to be a "different" supplier to old E.On, all their meters have to go via the full transfer process - there's no possible shortcuts to speed things up unless a supplier simply rebrands and changes their own name while keeping everything else the same. Which isn't what's happening in this case...

@theunknowntech thank you for once again taking the time to respond to customers on our Community. Your tech insight doesn't go unnoticed! Beki