Dumb meter, dumb company

[rossbyjove]

I finally succumbed to the demands of electric company X and allowed them to fit a smart meter. Another company had tried some years ago and took it out again as it couldn't communicate . I warned company X that this was the case , they were of course quick to claim SMETS2 would work well.
The installer duly arrived today having driven four and a half hours to get here since the ferries were broken, again! and it was his only job down here today. He predicted that the meter wouldn't work but at least I would get a shiny new one.
He duly removed the clockwork device that's been happily whirring away since the early 1970's and fitted a very neat looking box of tricks.
Unsurprisingly when it came to communicating, it couldn't , so I will continue to do as I have done for years and send in the meter readings each month.
Why is it that these dumb companies will not believe the householder or even take heed of previous experiences and still insist on sending an engineer on a nine hour round trip to supply and fit clever electronic devices to areas in which they don't/can't work??

Don't forget someone has to pay the eyewatering amounts of cash to the chinese and french to build and run our nuclear power plants.

 

[rossbyjove]

Nor even a mobile phone in our case, because there's no viable mobile signal at home so we have to use wifi calling.

James

We just cancelled our 'internet' landline.
It never really worked.
Kept cutting out several times during every call and 'synchronising hand set data' took hours, during that time no one could call or calls be made.

 

[enrico]

We just cancelled our 'internet' landline.
It never really worked.
Kept cutting out several times during every call and 'synchronising hand set data' took hours, during that time no one could call or calls be made.

Just cancelled mine too. Paying £3 a month for spam calls

 

[Murox]

We just cancelled our 'internet' landline.
It never really worked.
Kept cutting out several times during every call and 'synchronising hand set data' took hours, during that time no one could call or calls be made.

What on earth is an 'internet landline'?? Surely that's a contradiction in terms? Landlines use wire and cable don't they and the other is VoIP ?

 

[Sutty]

What on earth is an 'internet landline'?? Surely that's a contradiction in terms? Landlines use wire and cable don't they and the other is VoIP ?

If you have a traditional bt landline they are moving to a digital system, so essentially it will  all be voip after everyone is changed.
They give you a new router, and your existing phone (or base station if you have existing wireless handsets) plugs into the back of that.
I suspect that is what is meant by "internet landline".
Unlike traditional landlines power is not then supplied to work the handset via the phone cable, so in the case of a power cut the phone will not work, unlike the traditional system.