It's not just a DCC issue, but also related to the shutdown nationally of the old 3G phone networks. The 3G networks which are the backbone of much of the Smart Metering system will all be completely shut down nationwide by 2032 but many telcos have already begun to switch off and decommission the equipment already.
Where I am, EE switched off 3G on 31st September this year and Vodafone are shutting theirs off in March 2023, leaving much of Wales in a situation where all the smart meters (SMETS1 and 2) will just stop working. My wife had to change her EE phone last month and I have just been informed by Vodafone that my phone will no longer be operational, so I now need to go through the palaver of getting a new phone and a new contract.
Newer meter systems in most of England and Wales, even ones being currently installed, will just turn into dumb meters. In some areas where meters can communicate between each other in a mesh system, and where DCC have put in their own infrastructure to act as a 'hub' for all the meshed 'nodes', not so much of a problem, but in rural areas where properties aren't close enough to each other for the mesh to work effectively, most bets are off.
Infrastructure in the north of England and in Scotland is different, relying on LoRa, which is a low power, long range radio system. This doesn't use the 3G networks, but instead a system operated by Arquiva, the same lot running the Radio 4 long wave transmitter at Droitwich, which also provides the Radio Tele Switch system used by over 1.6 million Economy 7 and commercial customers. Allegedly, R4 long wave is scheduled to be 'deprecated' next year, i.e. switched off to save money, but Arquiva will still need to keep the transmitter running, just without Radio 4, in order to keep RTS running. It is not only used by the electricity system for demand management but also by several other agencies (Environment Agency being one).
Anyway, your meter is now a dumb meter, so welcome to the 'old world'. Even if you got the meter upgraded or replaced by an SMETS2 unit, chances are, unless you are 'oop Narth', it too will revert to being a dumb meter in the very near future anyway.
Very much newer communication hubs for smart meters are being rolled out which will work on an 868MHz frequency in a mesh system with DCC 'concentrators' in strategic locations gathering data from a cluster of meters in a single area, but this will only work in densely populated areas and where DCC can put in their infrastructure.
The 868MHz band is currently allocated to mobile communications, and switch off of 3G will free up a chunk of spectrum that DCC can then use for ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical), but until 3G is shutdown in a particular area, DCC's kit doesn't play nicely. And, the exact same problem will happen, that 3G suffers from. If you live in a mobile 'not spot', it's likely that even the new systems won't work properly either. The data may be different, but the laws of physics and radio signal propagation are the same for smart meter comms as they are for telephone calls.
Those are my thoughts. As to options, perhaps @
theunknowntech may have some ideas.
