Energy Tariffs

[Thebeeman]

EDF are paying the £400 straight into our bank accounts so the DD don't need to change and we won't build up extra credit with them.

[Lincs Robert]

Ah, ESN! Airwave was implemented around geographic coverage. ESN uses EE - but is supposed to have agreed coverage “not spots” filled in - at additional expense of course. Irony is that until everyone has migrated to ESN, that Airwave will remain in place- costing the taxpayer in the region of £400 Million per year! Hey ho …..

I keep hearing this refrain from the chief inspector up the road. I won't repeat his views of the people implementing ESN. Suffice to say he believes that it is a complete and utter shambles, and is adamant that he is not going to put his officers at risk in this rural area by sending them out with barely functioning radios. He has suggested (more than once, but slightly tongue in cheek) they they would be better off putting all the blue police boxes back). Please the Doctor Who fans, I'm sure.

Airwave was implemented by, er, Airwave. Initially under BT ownership & the into O2 as it took five years to build. The buck stopped with them & there were penalties for late delivery. ESN is “managed” by the Home Office - who employ vast quantities of ££ contractors & £££ consultants to do it for them. The whole implementation is also fragmented between a number of suppliers, with EE for example only providing the 4G coverage. There is also an interesting situation where Motorola are also delivering some aspects of ESN - but they also own Airwave and have for many years. So there’s very little incentive for anybody to move it along as delay means getting paid for longer. There is an option in poor signal areas to use a vehicle as a “gateway” as a vehicle radio will perform better than a handheld device. However, the Home Office “forgot” about vehicle sets until only a couple of years ago as they didn’t exist at the time and had to go into a “fast track” procurement for them.

[Oldgreybeard]

I suppose Octopus could get you on a standard tariff but not one that requires a smart meter for TOU type tariffs.
I would probably be in the same situation as you if our smart meter connection relied on the mobile phone network as only being 6 miles outside the outskirts of Aberdeen our mobile signal requires me to go upstairs to the bedroom and sit on the window ledge to get 1 bar signal.
It's about time that the mobile networks had to allow connection at whichever mast gave the best signal and ensure 100% coverage.

The issue seemed to be the (fairly new) Economy 7 meter, as far as I could tell. That meter was fitted by SSE towards the end of 2019, after a few months of struggling by them to try and get a smart meter to work. I've double checked that it is properly registered, and that the MPAN and the meter serial number match up OK (there was an issue with this for a few weeks), but when I called Octopus they refused to accept me as a customer, because they said they were unable to support a standard Economy 7 meter. To their credit they did have access to, and check, the chequered history of us trying to get a smart meter, but their conclusion was that they were unable to offer any tariff for a non-smart Economy 7 meter.

To be fair to Octopus, they are not the only supplier refusing to offer Economy 7 tariffs to non-smart meter customers. I've had two other suppliers, Good Energy and another I can't remember that said the same thing, they could only offer an Economy 7 tariff is we had a suitable smart meter.

We can sometimes just about get a text message on a mobile if I open the bedroom window to the East and lean right out, holding the phone as high as I can get it. We tried using this to get online banking to work once or twice, with mixed results. It will sometimes work in winter, when there is no leaves on the trees, as long as it isn't raining. Our interim fix to get online banking to work for a fair few months (until we changed banks) was for one of us to drive up the lane about a mile or so, to where there's a signal, then the other would start the log on process, the text with the code would be received by the other in the car, who would then scribble it down and call our landline number to relay the one time code. had to be quick, though, as there is a time out between them sending that text and it still being accepted on their website. Changing to Nationwide, with their card machine, has made life a great deal easier.

Curiously, Santander (who we used to be with) seemed completely baffled that their log on procedure caused so much hassle. They keep trying to get us to back to them, and although I've nothing against them, there would be no point in going back to a bank that simply doesn't function at home for us. Their nearest branch is 12 miles away, so there is no way I'm going to waste an hour or two just paying a bill.

[Oldgreybeard]

Airwave was implemented by, er, Airwave. Initially under BT ownership & the into O2 as it took five years to build. The buck stopped with them & there were penalties for late delivery. ESN is “managed” by the Home Office - who employ vast quantities of ££ contractors & £££ consultants to do it for them. The whole implementation is also fragmented between a number of suppliers, with EE for example only providing the 4G coverage. There is also an interesting situation where Motorola are also delivering some aspects of ESN - but they also own Airwave and have for many years. So there’s very little incentive for anybody to move it along as delay means getting paid for longer. There is an option in poor signal areas to use a vehicle as a “gateway” as a vehicle radio will perform better than a handheld device. However, the Home Office “forgot” about vehicle sets until only a couple of years ago as they didn’t exist at the time and had to go into a “fast track” procurement for them.

Sadly I am not at all surprised by that tale, it seems normal for many government procurement contracts to be badly managed. What our neighbour is puzzled by is exactly why ESN doesn't work, when Airwave does. We were chatting about it not long before Covid, as he was one of the members of our local community group that's been trying to get mobile coverage here, even if we have to self-fund what they call a "micro cell". We have the land, with power, to install a microcell antenna, and the local farmer is fine with having the fibre to run it run across his land (he wants coverage like everyone else - his tractors need it apparently).

The only reason I've heard of for Airwave working where ESN and mobile phones don't is because of the lower frequency that Airwave uses, that apparently has a much longer range and is better able to penetrate deep valleys like ours. Can't be beyond the capabilities of the powers that be to just allow the Airwave frequencies to be re-used for mobile coverage, surely. Would seem to address lots of problems all in one go, by massively improving mobile coverage in rural areas at the same time.

[Lincs Robert]

Airwave was implemented by, er, Airwave. Initially under BT ownership & the into O2 as it took five years to build. The buck stopped with them & there were penalties for late delivery. ESN is “managed” by the Home Office - who employ vast quantities of ££ contractors & £££ consultants to do it for them. The whole implementation is also fragmented between a number of suppliers, with EE for example only providing the 4G coverage. There is also an interesting situation where Motorola are also delivering some aspects of ESN - but they also own Airwave and have for many years. So there’s very little incentive for anybody to move it along as delay means getting paid for longer. There is an option in poor signal areas to use a vehicle as a “gateway” as a vehicle radio will perform better than a handheld device. However, the Home Office “forgot” about vehicle sets until only a couple of years ago as they didn’t exist at the time and had to go into a “fast track” procurement for them.

Sadly I am not at all surprised by that tale, it seems normal for many government procurement contracts to be badly managed. What our neighbour is puzzled by is exactly why ESN doesn't work, when Airwave does. We were chatting about it not long before Covid, as he was one of the members of our local community group that's been trying to get mobile coverage here, even if we have to self-fund what they call a "micro cell". We have the land, with power, to install a microcell antenna, and the local farmer is fine with having the fibre to run it run across his land (he wants coverage like everyone else - his tractors need it apparently).

The only reason I've heard of for Airwave working where ESN and mobile phones don't is because of the lower frequency that Airwave uses, that apparently has a much longer range and is better able to penetrate deep valleys like ours. Can't be beyond the capabilities of the powers that be to just allow the Airwave frequencies to be re-used for mobile coverage, surely. Would seem to address lots of problems all in one go, by massively improving mobile coverage in rural areas at the same time.

Airwave uses a technology called TETRA & operates in the 380 to 420Mhz band. Its a technology specifically developed for use by the emergency services & the like. It’s a totally standalone network and uses about 10,000 base sites spread throughout the land. ESG uses 4G on EE - which is a much higher frequency - and has many times more base sites. As to exactly why it doesn’t work - who knows. It’s had enough money thrown at it & I can’t help thinking that the reasons I cited earlier don’t encourage collaborative working between parties. Plus a sprinkling of political meddling then you end up where we are now. Airwave has life left in it - but it’s been in place since 2000, so the kit will start to age.

[Oldgreybeard]

Why oh why do all energy suppliers make it so very hard to try and find out what they charge?

They behave like a supermarket that refuses to price goods on the shelves and only makes up the amount you have to pay when you reach the checkout. No one would accept any other retailer behaving like this. If garages, supermarkets or any other retailer hid their prices, so they were almost impossible to find, there would be widespread outcry. However, it seems that all energy suppliers can hide and obfuscate their prices free from any condemnation by the regulator or anyone else.

Wouldn't it be great if OFGEM published an up-to-date table of tariffs for every UK supplier, as a service to the public, rather than the completely nonsensical "average price cap", that has zero bearing on how much the majority of homes will actually pay. I bet most customers don't have a clue about the unit rates they are paying until they get a bill.

[nowty]

As expected, the Octopus Go, Go Faster and Inteligent tariffs are all unchanged. I received the email today and it's been reported on other forums today.

"As an Intelligent Octopus customer, you’re unaffected by this as your prices are already below the Energy Price Guarantee rates"

[Oldgreybeard]

As expected, the Octopus Go, Go Faster and Inteligent tariffs are all unchanged. I received the email today and it's been reported on other forums today.

"As an Intelligent Octopus customer, you’re unaffected by this as your prices are already below the Energy Price Guarantee rates"

Pity the other energy suppliers are really taking this to the wire, by not revealing their tariffs until the very last minute.

I think they are waiting for the weekend, when they will announce their tariff then make sure there is no one manning their phones for the next 48 hours . . .

(Does than make me sound cynical?)

[Thebeeman]

Pity the other energy suppliers are really taking this to the wire, by not revealing their tariffs until the very last minute.

I think they are waiting for the weekend, when they will announce their tariff then make sure there is no one manning their phones for the next 48 hours . . .

(Does than make me sound cynical?)

I'm still trying without success to get quotes from Octopus and Ovo as a new customer. I hope things change after Sat.

[richbee]

Pity the other energy suppliers are really taking this to the wire, by not revealing their tariffs until the very last minute.

I think they are waiting for the weekend, when they will announce their tariff then make sure there is no one manning their phones for the next 48 hours . . .

(Does than make me sound cynical?)

I'm still trying without success to get quotes from Octopus and Ovo as a new customer. I hope things change after Sat.

I looked on Octopus and it just said - 'you're probably better off staying where you are for now'