3G’s decline is bad news for the nation’s smart meters
Sending a human to read your electricity or gas meter should already be a thing of the past. The government and utilities companies had hoped to finish the switchover by 2019, but today only 57% of the 57.1 million meters in the country are transmitting readings wirelessly.
Now there’s another oncoming obstacle. According to a recent report from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, 7 million of the smart meters that have already been installed look set to go dark between now and 2030, during which time 2G and 3G are being gradually switched off by the phone networks.
This means that despite being a long way behind the initial target, energy companies are going to have to fix existing installations, too.
“There is an expectation that all technologies will come to an end and obviously current infrastructure would need to be replaced, but you would hope that they will do it gradually over a period of years,” said Sam Colley, CEO of Pod Group, an enterprise network operator that specialises in IoT equipment.
The problem is that many smart meters were not built with 5G or even 4G communications modules, because at the time they were installed they were too expensive or simply didn’t exist.
But there is some good news. When the utility companies do begin upgrades, there could be cheaper and more specialist options. “There were newer technologies created that were much more effective in terms of battery consumption, and that also have less requirements on the ne
