Telecommunications giant O2 has entered the smart meter market with a multi-million supply deal.

The company will use its technology to upgrade and simplify the smart meter network of G4S Utility Services, one of the biggest smart meter firms in the UK.

G4S will use O2’s SMS gateway to securely relay information from its smart meters to its data centre and back again.

Outbound messaging will allow G4S to monitor the working order of its smart meters remotely, reducing the cost of maintenance and servicing as well as carbon emissions associated with travel. The deal will also see O2 provide G4S with the connectivity to run the annual testing of its disaster recovery process.

O2 business sales director Ben Dowd said: “We believe there are real opportunities to use our network to accelerate the roll out of smart meters by helping utilities companies and other suppliers to deploy and manage the devices in a quicker and more cost effective way.”

G4S managing director Kim Challis added: “The provision of O2’s SMS gateway technology will greatly enhance the remote monitoring of our smart metering provision, providing a more efficient cost effective service to our customers. We are looking forward to rolling out this technology during our Smart metering installation phase.”

Earlier this month, O2 was recertified with the Carbon Trust Standard for improving its carbon efficiency by nearly 18%.

O2 was the first mobile network operator to be awarded the Carbon Trust Standard in January 2009 and since then has cut CO2 emissions by 30,000 tonnes.

Chief executive Ronan Dunne said: “The Carbon Trust Standard is the de facto UK mark of commitment to carbon reduction. By retaining the standard we’ve proved that by using technology to measure energy usage, connect people, and encourage new ways of working , we can make a major difference to climate change.”