Hi there,

We recently built a new home in a valley in Nelson, move in in July 2024. The cellphone reception is not 'great' but I do consistently get 2 bars of 4G at least.

Our power smart meter was working completely fine until 10pm one night late in November last year, which is the last time Contact (our power provider) are showing a smart reading. There has much to-and-fro with them, which resulted in a technician from the meter company (Wells?) coming and installing a new communications module and relocating the unit slightly. He indicated that as measured via his testing device, the signal at the unit was a bit weak but still completely usable.

Subsequently we've seen no return of smart meter readings at the Contact end and they've just emailed to advise that 'all options have been exhausted' and that we will need to rely on manual readings moving forward.

Any ideas what my options are here? Relevant facts:

• The unit worked completely fine for 5 months, so unless the cellphone signal has decided to arbitrarily fall off a cliff (which isn't reflected in my own experience with other mobile devices), it seems odd it would just suddenly 'stop'.
• The meter technician indicated the signal strength was perfectly servicable.
• The smart meter is housed inside the garage and we are not at home during the day, so manual readings (even infrequent) supplemented with our own manual reading submissions via the web portal is going to be a giant pain in the butt.
• Our neighbours are not having the same issue.

Any suggestions on 'where to from here'?

Thanks,

Daniel