Radio-off option for advanced meters
While we encourage everyone to take advantage of the benefits advanced meters offer, there is a radio-off option for those who want to have their advanced meter read manually.
Advanced meter benefits
Wireless advanced meters can provide many benefits. They enable us to provide your bill without estimates and offer you tools to better manage your energy use. By transmitting energy consumption information to us, advanced meters reduce the need for manual meter readings and provide important operational information to us.
They also allow us to provide additional safety features for gas customers such as having the ability to turn off gas remotely when we’re made aware of an emergency such as a gas leak, wildfire, flood or earthquake.
Radio-off option
If you choose the radio-off option, you’ll still have an advanced meter, except the wireless transmissions will be disabled. This means the meter will not be able to wirelessly send your energy consumption information to us. Instead, a FortisBC employee or representative will visit the property to manually download data from your meter. We also won’t be able to turn off gas remotely when we’re made aware of an emergency such as a gas leak, wildfire, flood or earthquake.
Before you choose
Before you make a decision to go radio-off, review the following table to see the differences between an advanced meter with wireless ability and a radio-off meter.
| Advanced meter | Radio-off meter | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly consumption information | Available online in near real time | Only available after manual meter read |
| Outage notification | Improved outage notification to FortisBC and response time | Must call FortisBC during outage |
| Ability to disconnect gas remotely in emergencies | Yes | No |
| Support for home area networks and displays | Yes (this option will be available soon) | No - option requires wireless transmission of information |
| Cost to customer | No cost | A one-time administration fee, and a fee per meter read |
Radio-off fees
If you choose the radio-off option, there will be associated costs. This means a one-time setup fee to reconfigure your meter to a radio-off meter and a per-read meter reading fee.
The fees ensure the majority of customers will not be responsible for covering the actual costs of manual readings. The fees have been approved by the British Columbia Utilities Commission and include:
- One time: if you choose a radio-off meter, you’ll be charged a one-time, per-premises setup fee of $88. This recovers the administrative and infrastructure costs associated with the installation of a radio-off meter. The fee will be charged on the first customer bill after the radio-off meter is installed.
- Each meter read: a per-read fee of $19.50 that recovers the cost of manually downloading the consumption and operational data from a radio-off meter will be charged. This covers the vehicle and labour costs incurred for the ongoing manual meter reading process. The per-read fee will be charged for each manual meter read.
To request the radio-off option, call us at 1-866-436-7847, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to speak with a customer service representative. If you change your mind, you can go back to a standard advanced meter. The only charge will be a final per-read fee.
Customers who choose the radio-off option will be required to pay a one-time installation fee and ongoing monthly fees to cover the costs of manual meter reads. The following fees (per meter) ensure the majority of our customers are not responsible for covering the cost of providing a radio-off option:
- One time: if you request a radio-off meter before the meter exchange at your address, you'll be charged a one-time, per-premises setup fee of $61. If the request for a radio-off meter is made after the exchange has already taken place, the one-time fee will be $105. This accounts for the additional labour and vehicle costs associated with travelling back to a property.
- Each meter read: a per-read fee of $21 will be charged to recover the cost of travelling to a radio-off premises and manually reading the meter.
These fees are approved by our regulator, the BC Utilities Commission. To request a radio-off gas meter, call us at 1-888-224-2710, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. to speak with a customer service representative. If you change your mind, you can go back to a standard advanced gas meter at no additional cost. You will only be responsible for the final manual per-read fee.