Just a reminder that all pre-paid meters (any brand, anywhere in the country) that have not been upgraded will stop accepting credit tokens on Sunday this week. Thereafter they will use whatever credit is on them, and then cut you off.

If you haven't done the TID update, get it done quickly. I can't speak for all suppliers, but certainly City Power (in greater Johannesburg) and Eskom are assisting people who have not done the upgrade, and will continue to do so for a while after the expiry date. 

Not sure? Buy a small amount. Then scrutinise the voucher you get. You are looking for the letters "KRN" (Key Revision Number). If KRN is 2 then your meter is OK (until 2045 when this whole business starts again). If it is 1 then you need to act. Quickly.

In Johannesburg if you know your meter has not been upgraded, or are not sure, AND your meter is from City Power (not one of the third party pre-paid operators). Take the meter number (the number that you use when buying tokens) and your latest municipal account to your nearest City Power office. 

The meter can still be upgraded after the 24th (Sunday), but between the 24th and the day of upgrading you will not be able to load any credit onto it.

Pre-paid water meters need the same upgrade. 

Do not ask your neighbour what they did. The code to update the meter is unique for each meter. That's why you should take the meter number with you.

50 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

If you haven't done the TID update

again, surely the prepaid meter belongs to the electricity supplier, should this not be done by them, without the end use having to do major gymnastics, other than agreeing to a time, when the supplier calls, on when they can have access to the meter?

I have been writing software for prepaid vending systems since 2005.  I have integrated with a LOT of utilities.

And each and every integration since way back in 2005 has included a 'must pass' test case, where the vending server returns 4 tokens in sequence, and the vending software must present all 4 tokens in sequence to the end user to enter into the terminal.

This is a 'worst case' vend, and includes 2 key change tokens, 1 revenue token and 1 free token.

So, since the dawn of STS meters, every vending platform has been required to demonstrate that they can correctly deliver key change tokens to the end user, before they are allowed to vend for a utility.

All the utility needs to do is set the key change flag for a meter, and the next time they buy electricity, they will receive 3-4 tokens.  All the end user has to do is enter all of these tokens in sequence on the meter.

For ~70% of users this is a non-issue.  But there are always some that battle - especially given the rather cryptic error messages some meters give if you enter the tokens out of sequence. Most of these can be dealt with by a call centre operator talking the customer through the process.  If that fails, they send out a technician.

This does result in a higher call centre/technician load during the process.  As a result, utilities tend to batch  these, doing a few % of meters per month.

Generally, the worst affected clients are those in the last batches, who also do not vend frequently.

5 hours ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

again, surely the prepaid meter belongs to the electricity supplier, should this not be done by them, without the end use having to do major gymnastics, other than agreeing to a time, when the supplier calls, on when they can have access to the meter?

I can only comment on where I live. City Power did try sending technicians out to recode the meters. It is not difficult. You punch in a 20 digit code when you load a voucher. The upgrade consists of 2 x 20 digit codes.

They ran into two problems
1) Nobody home (in my suburb most meters are inside the property)
2) They code the meter, meanwhile the owner has a voucher that he bought and hadn't loaded yet, and after the upgrade could not load.

So they incorporated the update code with the purchases. When you bought, you got three 20 digit numbers - the first two were the upgrade and the third was the actual credit.

This may be where they erred. They did it suburb by suburb, and every suburb had a certain time window in which they could buy a token and get the upgrade codes.

There is also the South African habit of leaving everything to the last minute. But government, at any level, can't do anything about that except issue reminders.

Edited November 21, 20241 yr by Bobster.
Sppellling

5 hours ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

again, surely the prepaid meter belongs to the electricity supplier, should this not be done by them, without the end use having to do major gymnastics, other than agreeing to a time, when the supplier calls, on when they can have access to the meter?

An additional problem might be the third party providers. These guys are used by people who are renting out a property. The municipal meter stays in place, and the prepaid meter is between the municipal meter and the DB. The tenant buys tokens - so much per unit, plus a service fee. The provider either credits the property owner (having skimmed off a bit for themselves) or manages the electricity bill for the owner. Please do not ask me about the legality of this. As I typed this I thought "oooh... that looks dodgy", but these entities exist. 

They are beyond City Power's control (or Eskom's) and have to make their own arrangements.

Also there are people out there who are refusing to upgrade because, they say, this is the New World Order reading your mind when the Covid vaccination didn't take effect. Stuff like that. It's hard to factor such thinking into any kind of sensible plan.

6 hours ago, JustinSchoeman said:

Generally, the worst affected clients are those in the last batches, who also do not vend frequently.

City Power are saying they have received update requests for meters that haven't vended for months, even years. So they are flagging those for inspection to find out why the owner who hasn't bought for all this time is suddenly buying now.

Edited November 21, 20241 yr by Bobster.
Sspellingg

13 hours ago, JustinSchoeman said:

I have been writing software for prepaid vending systems since 2005.  I have integrated with a LOT of utilities.

And each and every integration since way back in 2005 has included a 'must pass' test case, where the vending server returns 4 tokens in sequence, and the vending software must present all 4 tokens in sequence to the end user to enter into the terminal.

This is a 'worst case' vend, and includes 2 key change tokens, 1 revenue token and 1 free token.

So, since the dawn of STS meters, every vending platform has been required to demonstrate that they can correctly deliver key change tokens to the end user, before they are allowed to vend for a utility.

All the utility needs to do is set the key change flag for a meter, and the next time they buy electricity, they will receive 3-4 tokens.  All the end user has to do is enter all of these tokens in sequence on the meter.

For ~70% of users this is a non-issue.  But there are always some that battle - especially given the rather cryptic error messages some meters give if you enter the tokens out of sequence. Most of these can be dealt with by a call centre operator talking the customer through the process.  If that fails, they send out a technician.

This does result in a higher call centre/technician load during the process.  As a result, utilities tend to batch  these, doing a few % of meters per month.

Generally, the worst affected clients are those in the last batches, who also do not vend frequently.

I laugh at the term "software upgrade" when it's just an instruction to a new encryption key. 

This article is complete crap surely? The meter has not clue what the date is. https://www.iol.co.za/news/energy/warning-if-you-fail-to-recode-your-prepaid-meter-before-november-24-it-will-cost-you-r12000-b84ebc16-9efe-4dbb-a8a5-e7f6ab15ae21

My understanding is that token verification uses the time at which a token was created as part of the validation process. Because of hardware/software constraints at the time the system was created they could only provide for dates up to Sunday evening the 24th November.

What surprises me the most is the claim that meters not updated will need to be replaced if the deadline is missed - surely this is a massive oversight on the designers side to not have some method of updating the meter after the deadline. In some ways it feels like fearmongering by Eskom (especially threatening R12k) but I haven't seen any one refuting this.

2 hours ago, JaseZA said:

My understanding is that token verification uses the time at which a token was created as part of the validation process. Because of hardware/software constraints at the time the system was created they could only provide for dates up to Sunday evening the 24th November

The update only shifts that date limit. If you and your meter are still cohabiting in 2045 you are going to have to upgrade to KRN3.

2 hours ago, JaseZA said:

What surprises me the most is the claim that meters not updated will need to be replaced if the deadline is missed - surely this is a massive oversight on the designers side to not have some method of updating the meter after the deadline. In some ways it feels like fearmongering by Eskom (especially threatening R12k) but I haven't seen any one refuting this.

I haven't seen that claim. City Power and Eskom (but I can't speak for other municipalities) are offering support after November 24th. There may be a period during which you will not be able to load tokens, but the meter can still be upgraded and will resume normal operation. The update mechanism is actually part of the firmware mechanism, and City Power handled this by, for a certain period of time, giving you extra codes when you purchased. Instead of one 20 digit number you got three. The first two performed the upgrade and the third loaded the credit onto your meter. So there is a built in mechanism for an upgrade (this has been done for at least 4 brands of meter in my suburb) and the upgrade can be done after Nov 24. 

Edited November 22, 20241 yr by Bobster.
Spelingg

7 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

I haven't seen that claim.

Because I didn't read the whole thread first.

This is at odds with the messaging I see from Eskom and from City Power who are allocating resources to TID updates and have both said that they will provide upgrades after Nov 24. But sometimes the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

There are cases, for both entities, where they suspect that some of the meters for which an upgrade is requested are either bypassed or have been buying counterfeit tokens from another source. They are going to investigate those. So a worst case scenario (if you have been naughty) might be replacement at your cost (or you can agree to not do business with them anymore).

Edited November 22, 20241 yr by Bobster.

Also some newspapers (and IOL are one of the sensationalist locally) like a bit of FUD to get attention. Some years ago we were getting lurid reports about planes falling out of the sky at the stroke of midnight as the calendar moved to 1st January 2000. The Y2K bug was a real problem, but it was never going to cause the sort of problems that some newspapers reported on. 

Edited November 22, 20241 yr by Bobster.
You guessed! Spellling

Here's a report about City Power (Jhb) that explains that the meter replacement is a penalty for "non vending" customers, but is suspended right now. 

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2024-11-21-no-penalties-grace-period-for-non-vending-city-power-customers-as-race-to-change-meters-gathers-pace