capita owns the smart metters monopoly

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/03/data_communications_company_annual_report_capita/

The Capita-owned monopoly that runs Britain's smart meter infrastructure made an operating profit of £390,000 last year – but paid no tax and is owed £42m by the wider smart meter industry.

Smart DCC Ltd's "regulatory accounts" for the year ending March 31 were published earlier this week in its annual report.

The firm, also known as the Data Communications Company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Capita and has a monopoly over the management of Britain's smart meter infrastructure, under its licence to operate from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It decides who will build and operate that infrastructure by awarding contracts, on behalf of the State, to suppliers, and then manages those contracts.

Although the DCC's corporation tax bill for last year was precisely nil, Capita was quick to insist that the parent company pays all its taxes and that BEIS is content with this setup. The DCC's annual report says: "We operate on a £nil profit model where our revenues are exactly equal to our costs. Our charges to Service Users are structured in such a way that we receive funds that are sufficient to cover our expected costs for the year, plus a contingent amount, known as the Prudent Estimate."

I don't have one of these and I understand people with them have reported lots of problems

We have wrangled with British Gas over smart meters where their call centre lackeys have insisted that legally we must have them when in reality we have the right to refuse to have them installed. They get paid hundreds of pounds of tax payer's money to put them into homes and that's why they lie to customers about the law surrounding them - it's simply so that they will get the money for it. They will ring you up and insist that by *blah de blah date* every home must have one. The truth is they've been given a target and the consumer is under no obligation to accept smart meters in their home by any date.