Smart meter confusion

ericmark said:
I still say if the energy companies say they will not use the auto disconnect system, then why include it in the meters? I remember the winter of discontent and having power turned off, and three day week. The problem was then they could not single out houses which were to be left connected, so if there was an area with a hospital that whole area avoided having a power cut.
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It sounds as if you are presenting an argument for smart meters, because it would enable any 'area cuts' to leave selected high-priority installations with power.

However, that aside, I have often wondered why the meters have disconnectors if, in general, all the suppliers have said they will not use them to remotely disconnect consumers. Could it be that the SMETS specification was written without too much regard for the views of suppliers, and that when the suppliers' lawyers and PR people (not to mention Ofgem, the media and various 'interest groups') saw that the meters included disconnectors, the suppliers were strongly influenced by advice regarding the possible legal and PR consequences of their using remote disconnection for 'commercial' reasons?

Kind Regards, John
 
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JohnW2 said:
However, that aside, I have often wondered why the meters have disconnectors if, in general, all the suppliers have said they will not use them to remotely disconnect consumers.
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I suppose the facility might have some value in emergency situations? It would make it easier in an emergency such as a fire, to turn gas and power if it could be done remotely.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
I suppose the facility might have some value in emergency situations? It would make it easier in an emergency such as a fire, to turn gas and power if it could be done remotely.
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Only if the emergency services have access to the meters system, and if they do, then more chance of wrong house being switched off. Yes having a fire detection system which in the event of fire turns on alarm then if not cancelled within set time turns on sprinklers, and turns off power may seem good, until the day some one dies as the slip on the wet stairs in the dark trying to exist the building.

Having twin consumer units one for essentials and one for extras and having the extras one turned off yes, that is same when trying to work out what is using power, at the main supply point to house is neither the point to measure usage or isolate.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
I suppose the facility might have some value in emergency situations? It would make it easier in an emergency such as a fire, to turn gas and power if it could be done remotely.
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I suppose that might conceivably have been their thinking, but it does sound a bit like 'scraping the barrel'. Nor would that necessarily be without theoretical hazard - if, for example, those within a burning building were reliant on cordless landline phones or VoiP etc. for communication, or if they were thereby deprived of light.

Kind Regards, John
 
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JohnW2 said:
The flag and your current location tell us nothing about your origins.
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John, you come across as a smart man who, at times, does not actually bother to think before writing. What you wrote is patent nonsense. The %age of people with those characteristics who are not British is miniscule, hence they tell you a lot about my probable origins. They also tell you my current location and hence that I am likely to follow BrE usage out of necessity.

JohnW2 said:
As I'm sure you understand, my point was simply that I don't think I've ever heard anyone in the UK referring to what is in their wallet as, say, "£10 bills" unless their use of English has been strongly influenced by some non-UK English (most commonly 'American English').
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As I am sure that you understand, I don't think I've ever heard anyone in the UK receiving a domestic utility bill of £1 million. As you (and presumably many if not most people reading) are aware that bill is used for banknotes in many English-speaking countries I just accepted that as a possible usage.

Simon may well have been talking about utility bills, albeit in a very hyperbolic manner. It just struck me as very odd that you felt the need to question my nationality rather than just asking why I interpreted 'bill' that way, or just saying nothing at all.
 
StephenOak said:
John, you come across as a smart man who, at times, does not actually bother to think before writing. .... As I am sure that you understand, I don't think I've ever heard anyone in the UK receiving a domestic utility bill of £1 million. As you (and presumably many if not most people reading) are aware that bill is used for banknotes in many English-speaking countries I just accepted that as a possible usage. Simon may well have been talking about utility bills, albeit in a very hyperbolic manner.
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I'm not sure why you are trying to make an issue out of it but, for the record, I did "bother to think before writing", and the result of that thinking was that I concluded that, in context, Simon was almost certainly talking about utility bills. It would have made absolutely no sense for him to be throwing into the discussion a comment about the printing of banknotes. I have to wonder whether it really was me who did not "bother to think before writing".

I also assumed that when Simon wrote that the facility exists for utility companies to generate "million quid bills", he was merely talking colloquially, in the same way that some people may have concerns that "millions of people" could be disconnected by smart meter disconnectors.

The great majority of people I hear using the word "bill" to refer to a banknote are American (and virtually all the rest are of non-UK origin/influence) - so I don't think my question was unreasonable.

Kind Regards, John
 
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Harry Bloomfield said:
Er, they don't have any wifi installed in them. What they do have, is an encrypted data transmission, sufficient for the indoor display. So far as I am aware, no one has managed to hack into its transmission to decode the data, despite a few attempting to.

If you know different, then feel free to correct me. I would be very interested.
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Apologies for the sloppy terminology - I should have said "wireless".

And again, I've not looked at or seen anything for some time, so maybe things have changed, but a few years ago there were real, justified concerns about the potential for hacking/subverting smart meters and their networks because of a generally poor security design, often badly implemented, the use of outdated protocols etc. GSM to communicate with the supplier, Zigbee to talk to smart appliances.

Risks Digest will have a number of posts, I'm sure.

Whether anybody has hacked anything yet isn't really a good indicator of safety if there are real vulnerabilities which could be exploited.
 
akist said:
By "mobile" you mean wireless telephony through the numerous telcom towers? Do these meters carry an internal SIM card then?
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As I understand it, yes they have a sim card in them. With no accessible mobile network from where the meter(s) are located, the meters will not be able to report back.
 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/smart-living/why-you-dont-need-mobile-signal/

The good news for people hoping to get accurate energy bills via a smart meter is that all meters will soon be enrolled into a dedicated, wireless smart meter network. At the moment, smart meters connect via existing mobile networks, which means people living in “not spots” may still temporarily need to give meter readings.


The new wireless smart meter network, operated by the Data and Communications Company (DCC), will cover more homes than are currently covered by 4G . In Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations report, just 88 per cent of premises receive data from mobile networks. The new national communications network will cover more than 99.25 per cent.

Once the new network is up and running, existing smart meters will be automatically enrolled over the air, so customers can enjoy automatically updated, accurate bills. The network is highly secure and was designed with British intelligence agency GCHQ. And because smart meters don’t connect via Wi-Fi or to the internet, homeowners are secure from the attentions of hackers.
 
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AndyPRK said:
Why would you want to hack into your neighbours energy monitor?
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Unfortunately that attitude can be a reason for ending up with poor security.

"No, we don't need to bother making this secure, because who would ever want to...."

The problem is that you just don't know. You don't know what some jerk might want to do just for a laugh. You don't know what onward damage could be done once a hacker has control of a meter, can install his own firmware, etc.

Why would you want to hack a car entertainment system, for example?

One thing you can be certain enough of to want to avoid it, wrt to security holes - "If you build one, 'they' will come".
 
bernardgreen said:
The new wireless smart meter network, operated by the Data and Communications Company (DCC), will cover more homes than are currently covered by 4G . In Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations report, just 88 per cent of premises receive data from mobile networks. The new national communications network will cover more than 99.25 per cent.

Once the new network is up and running, existing smart meters will be automatically enrolled over the air, so customers can enjoy automatically updated, accurate bills. The network is highly secure and was designed with British intelligence agency GCHQ. And because smart meters don’t connect via Wi-Fi or to the internet, homeowners are secure from the attentions of hackers.
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So what new wireless system might that be - 5g?

My understanding of 5g is that covered is very limited at the moment. What other system have they in mind, which has such widespread coverage?
 
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