[meldrewreborn]

The Public Accounts Committee has issued a report on the continued failures of the Smart Meter programme to meet its objectives.

It repeats at lot of the criticism of smart meters expressed by some on this forum but is quite mild in doing so - especially given the scale of the programme and its cost to consumers for little or no benefit.

Some of its statements are laughable - the cost of new communication hubs to replace those that will fail due to 2G and 3G mobile being withdrawn is said to be £2. Well I suppose buying in bulk you might get the purchase price of the units down to that, but the cost of fitting and testing - another £28?

Update on the rollout of smart meters (parliament.uk)

[geoffers]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@Mailman

I am willing to bet that once the debate into standing charges has been concluded and the energy industry has been told to reduce them, smart metering will be abandoned as the fiasco it is

Just to bring a note of reason into the discussion…

Although it does seem to be a bit cr*p that the smart-meter(SM) comms infrastructure is going to need to be upgraded to be able communicate with the 4G network, unfortunately technology has a habit of moving on.

From what I can see, the SM rollout commenced in 2011, so the infrastructure must have been specified and established a number of years beforehand using the currently available comms infrastructure.

(I wonder if this was based on European directives, where Italy & Sweden had commenced their SM rollout in the early years of the century with technology which has now reached end-of-life and is needing replacement)

The first release versions of 4G/LTE began to be rolled out in Scandinavia in December 2009 (the outline specification having only been defined in November 2008) so I'm sure that when the UK's SM network was specified it could not have included an as yet unknown comms technology.

The same must be true of so many tech systems - the NHS for instance was still running systems using W7 well after its "sell-by" date. In 2018 the DoHSC agreed with MS to upgrade systems to W10, but this will be reaching end-of-life in 2025. The latest W11 will most likely not run on existing NHS hardware, so any upgrade will probably involve hardware as well as OS updates.

[retrotecchie]

@meldrewreborn

Time they just gave up and scrapped the whole idea. A bit like HS2 - that was a shed-load of taxpayers money wasted on a project which wasn't going anywhere.

[Mailman]

Originally Posted by meldrewreborn

Some of its statements are laughable - the cost of new communication hubs to replace those that will fail due to 2G and 3G mobile being withdrawn is said to be £2. Well I suppose buying in bulk you might get the purchase price of the units down to that, but the cost of fitting and testing - another £28?

Update on the rollout of smart meters (parliament.uk)

I see that this report states

The Department also estimates that 7 million communications hubs (a modular component of the smart meter set) will need to be replaced in the South and Central regions ahead of 2033, when 2G and 3G communications networks are closed.

But the reality is that the current big 4 will be ceasing 2G/3G way before 2033 in many/most of these areas 😌 - I know that my almost obselete 2G (yes 2G no typo) phone (via the Vodafone network) will cease operating probably within 1 years max so I'd be astounded if my phone continued to operate past December 2024. I only use it for SMS verification codes/ NHS notifications and the like rather than as a mobile phone.

I keep telling you that t'North, not reliant on the cellular network for smart meter connectivity, has much going for it 😎

[meldrewreborn]

@Mailman

I know that @retrotecchie disagrees, but O2 are under contract to provide the current service through to 2033. I think that the service isn't the same as mobile services (its a variation) but from the report they don't seem to be rushing to introduce the 4G service.

2G and 3G sunset is on the horizon – what does it mean for your business energy meters? | SMS (sms-plc.com)

2G & 3G network sunsetting: The future of connectivity | Smart DCC

[retrotecchie]

@meldrewreborn

Telefonica (O2) are under contract to provide 2G/3G services for ITM (including smart metering) until 2033. No disagreement there at all!

However Vodafone have been awarded the contract for 4/5G services.

O2 do have the problem in many areas that they do not own the infrastructure as they 'code-share' on other network's masts due to economic or geographical reasons. The connectivity is being lost as the likes of Three, EE and Vodafone are all switching off 3G before the 'sunset' in 2032 and replacing equipment with 4 and 5G stuff. Contract with the DCC or not, there is nothing that O2 can do about it if another carrier switches off the signal on their masts as has been happening since May last year. EE switched off round here in October 2022 and Vodafone followed suit in November 2022.

DCCs licence is due to end in 2025 too. It will be interesting to see if that is renewed or some player other than Capita wins the gig.

[meldrewreborn]

@retrotecchie

I would say that it’s up to O2/telephonica to deliver the service they are contracted to provide - how they do that is up to them. But we’ve seen that regulatory enforcement is frequently absent whenever smart meters are concerned.

[Mailman]

@retrotecchie

Sounds like it is another fiasco in the making. Thanks for the info.

[Mailman]

@meldrewreborn

Thanks for those links am somewhat more aware now of what it all means for smart meters.

[retrotecchie]

@Mailman

I am willing to bet that once the debate into standing charges has been concluded and the energy industry has been told to reduce them, smart metering will be abandoned as the fiasco it is