Smart metering connectivity is the layer that decides whether a multi-million-device programme delivers reliable billing data, grid visibility and customer engagement — or quietly bleeds cost through coverage gaps, dormant SIMs and technology lock-in. It is an estate problem before it is a network problem: the right bearer depends on the devices, the geography, the power budget, the regulatory horizon and the commercial model, not on whichever SIM a vendor happens to sell.
CEHG works with utilities, metering operators, distribution network operators and connected-product manufacturers across the full lifecycle of a connected estate. We are deliberately independent — we hold no commercial relationship with SIM providers, mobile network operators or device vendors — so the advice is worth what it claims to be. The people who scope an engagement are the people who do the work; there is no junior team and no offshore hand-off.
Our practice covers bearer strategy and migration, device and platform architecture, and the data, operations and commercial structures that keep an estate owned rather than sold-to. That includes sequencing the 2G/3G sunset as an estate event rather than a network date, designing device architecture that survives the field, turning advanced metering infrastructure data into operational and revenue value, and writing procurement requirements that vendors can actually be held to.
Every recommendation rests on a single owned evidence base — coverage analysis, estate data and whole-life cost — measured against a fixed datum. The hard parts, where the value sits, are surfaced rather than hidden behind headline rates. The result is a connectivity decision the operator owns for the life of the asset.