Here the upgrades for meters are paid for by the grid operators. No changes to the cabinets are required, old analog meters were replaced by them for smart meters, at no extra cost to the consumer, and now they will replace them with new meters capable of metering by 15 minute interval.
This cost in germany is really only created by overregulation and insane bureaucrats creating work for them.
I first heard that in Germany there is much resistance to smart meters and I thought they were just silly people, but if it costs so much..