Smart meters have never connected

[morqthana]

It's 'reasonable' if one merely wants to attribute 'blame' for things which are now history - but that, in itself, does not help us moving forward.

Every court in the land spends most of its time trying to attribute blame for things which are now history, and I believe that that is regarded as helpful in moving forward as a society because of the way in which, albeit far from 100% effectively, it tends to discourage others from doing those things in the future.

As I said, it's what matters in terms of the future. Finding/exposing individuals as 'scapegoats' will not help the future at all, not the least because none of the individuals concerned will be in government when the next major crisis arises.

It's a start. Let's try and make it the first, hesitant, step on the path which leads to the situation where future individuals in government when a major crisis arises, and their actions are delinquent and their behaviour egregiously digusting, fear not a telling off from an enquiry but a prison term.

But of course this enquiry should identify and lambaste the guilty, not find people to be blamed and punished for the actions of others.

The planning was not as Baldrick-like as you seem to imply, although it was necessarily fairly theoretical, given so little past experience of such events. Since memories/data of past major pandemics (e.g. the 1919/20 'flu one) are so distant, most of the 'lessons learned' had too come from the 2009 HiN1 'flu pandemic, which was of limited value.

Who was it who demoralised and fragmented the NHS?

Who was it who wrecked the care-home sector?

Who was it who cut local authority funding so deeply that they had no capabilities to respond in areas where local actions and oversight were the best approach?

Who was it who dismantled so much of the apparatus of local authorities that we are now the most centralised economy in Europe and one of the most centralised of any democracy in the world?

Who was it who, basically, wrecked the entire state in a mad ideological pursuit of "market-driven private good, public bad"?

Even "limited value" is greater than the zero value of SFA.

 

[EFLImpudence]

I must say I am astounded by John's views.

 

[Murdochcat]

My personal opinion, is that too little was done, too late, after which there was a complete over-reaction. They basically, had no plan in place and so were thinking on their feet, as a result, major errors occurred, and lots of money wasted.

Very easy to say with the benefit of hindsight.

Are you Sir Kneel Hindsight?

 

[ericmark]

It's 'reasonable' if one merely wants to attribute 'blame' for things which are now history - but that, in itself, does not help us moving forward.

I must agree, a report which details how a tun-dish was not glued, or a cable was left looped, or the firm used unskilled labour as with the Emma Short report allows us to be more careful in the future, I am sure that plumber never thought not glueing a funnel could have caused a death, so it is good it is reported. But I am still uncertain as to if the foreman was really to blame, I would have thought one should be able to trust an electricians mate to write down what the meter showed.

The reduction of a speed limit due to a number of accidents at that spot is a good idea if the people involved were keeping to the existing speed limit, but completely pointless if the people involved were speeding.

It is not just who is to blame, but how they made the mistake, I was impressed when the TN-C-S problem was raised in the house of lords, some one it seems has some knowledge. However not so impressed when the HSE said it was not really a problem, the next time there is a fire or explosion due to loss of PEN will the HSE get the blame?

I do think that having an organisation like the HSE can do the reverse to what is intended, same with LABC, if a firm pays the LABC money to scrutinise there plans and to over see things are done according to plan, if the firm makes an error and builds the home a meter to low so they flood, then they can point the finger at the LABC for not highlighting the fault, if the LABC did not claim to monitor the build then the fault would clearly be the builders. But who is to blame is not what needs reporting, what needs reporting was how two independent people both missed the homes were a meter too low so they would flood if the culvert blocked. I could have understood 6" to low, but a meter? Talking about an estate built in Ruthin on the flood plain.

However what all this has to do with no telemetry on a electric meter I really don't know? Can really call is a Smart meter with no telemetry, I note with my inverter for the solar panels although in the main they use a server in China, there is an option to do it all local, when looking after my mother we did talk about pros and cons of the safety measures using phone line or internet, and the social services said internet was not reliable enough and had to use the phone, wonder what they do today where people have no copper phone line?

 

[JohnW2]

I must say I am astounded by John's views.

What is it that astonishes you?

My view is that we need to learn as many lessons as we can from the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, so as to increase our preparedness for, and management of, any future similar situation. That presumably requires identifying, with the benefit of hindsight, decisions, actions or judgements that were probably less than ideal (or perhaps 'frankly wrong') and thereby deciding what would be a better decision, action or judgement should a similar situation in the future.

We mustn't forget that was 'our' very first attempt to deal with such a situation in our lifetimes (or even our parents' lifetimes) - so it could be said that it's good that we 'managed to get anything right'!

Learning those lessons, for the future, does not really require (and nor is helped by) identifying, criticising and perhaps even 'punishing' individuals who were involved with the mistakes or errors of judgement that were made in the past (during the 'first attempt') - and, in any event, as I've recently written, I would think that the Cabinet is 'corporately responsible', not individual members of it.

Kind Regards, John

 

[IJWS15]

@davecooper
I have only read this thread today, and hope the following will be sort of informative even if not especially useful:

Cumbria.
That'll be the Arqiva UHF wan network for smart metering, rather than the O2 mobile phone network (due to be Vodafone 4G in the future).

UK Electricity and Gas Smart Metering

Gives details about Smart Meters being installed for electricity and gas in the UK.

www.smartme.co.uk

From an OVO forum, apparently the EDMI smart meters used in the North and Scotland with the Arqiva wan don't support a remote/external antenna... So no way to improve things that way!
Unless a diy modification of the comms unit appeals https://anengineersview.tech.blog/smets2-is-there-anybody-there/

Otherwise, it would require Arqiva to add additional radio sites to improve the signals into your home, or possibly, a relocation of the meter to an external meter box. 99.55% coverage still leaves a fair number of dwellings likely to be unserved by the UHF radio signals.

Close but none of the smart meters (Smets2) connect directly back to the energy company, they connect to the “communications hub” over ZigBee and it is the hub that connects over the WAN. The energy companies can use the same meters in the North, Midlands or South.

The real issue is that the DCC are ot buying 100% coverage and even where you have coverage there is less that 100% connectivity guaranteed by the network. Add to that things like stainless steel meter cabinets, Mrs Smith leaning her ironing board against the commas hub and mr smith parking his transit at the side of the house each night blocking the radio signal and you will see why many houses don’t have working smart meters.

Remember with a radio network the last 1% coverage May cost as much as the first 99%.

Details of all this is on the DCC website where the various contracts can be found.