The Frustrating 4 Month Case of a Vanishing UK Mobile Phone Mast
At the start of January 2026 a mobile phone mast in the Pembrokeshire (Wales) seaside town of Tenby suddenly disappeared, leaving locals to suffer extremely poor service quality no matter what network they used (some areas even have no signal at all). At the same time some mobile operators continued to deny there was even a problem, until very recently.
The mast itself, which is the closest one to the town centre and so is particularly important, was built 22 years ago in 2004 as an O2 mast, albeit with services from EE and Three UK being added a few years later (the 3G from Three UK was recently switched off and their main mast is c.2 miles away), and was last upgraded in 2016 to support 4G (mobile broadband) from O2, Vodafone and EE. The mast is eNB 10402 for O2 and Vodafone, and eNB 19146 for EE (postcode SA70 8AQ).
According to some feedback from locals, EE still has a reduced service in parts of Tenby, albeit not as good as when the old mast was live, while service from O2 and Vodafone has been in a poor to non-existent state now for several months. As if to make matters worse, some operators, like O2 and Vodafone, have until recently continued to report “no known issues in this area” via their network status checkers.
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However, Vodafone’s website was finally updated around 10th March to reflect that the mast had been “decommissioned” and to state they were working to “working hard to replace” it. But at exactly the same time O2’s map was continuing to claim “excellent indoors and outdoors” coverage, when that had not been the case for over two months.
More recently, during early April 2026 (nearly four months on), O2 decided to rub salt into the wound by allegedly telling one of our readers (hellomoto): “We’ve investigated our network in this area and there are no problems, we advise you to try cleaning your SIM card and restarting your phone.” The same reader tried contacting EE about the issue, but struggled to get a reply.
“Speeds on O2 when you do get signal are about 0.5Mbps, with Vodafone managing about 2Mbps on occasion, but most parts of the town are no signal at all. And that’s outdoors – obviously indoors is completely impossible,” said one of ISPreview’s readers (the situation is documented on our forum).
Sample of Social Media Complaints (Tenby Mobile Signal)
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Naturally ISPreview decided to see if we could get some concrete answers and so contacted all three of the main mobile operators. Both O2 and VodafoneThree provided a comment, while EE clarified that the site in question is managed by Cornerstone (CTIL) and they have not been involved with its removal.
A Spokesperson for O2 (Virgin Media) said:
“We’re aware of the signal issues in Tenby and apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. This is due to a local mast in the area being decommissioned. Other masts in the area have been optimised to help minimise disruption.”
A Spokesperson for VodafoneThree said:
“We’re sorry to Vodafone and Three UK customers in the Tenby area who are experiencing issues with their service. This follows the decommissioning of a mast in the area. We are working with our infrastructure partner on a longer-term solution and are exploring temporary options to help restore coverage as quickly as possible. Customers can check Vodafone’s Network Checker and Three UK’s Coverage and Network Status Checker for the latest updates.”
ISPreview understands that the health and safety concerns, which O2 mentioned to us, relate to the fact that the wooden pole (mast) was rotten and so had become increasingly dangerous, hence the need for a replacement. Related planning applications (e.g. NP/23/0238/FUL) show that a plan to upgrade the existing 15m High Monopole with a 22.5m High CU Phosco Phase 6 Monopole have been in the works for a couple of years, but despite being approved the progress has been slow.
Sadly, nobody could tell us precisely when the repair / replacement work is due to take place, although one local report did suggest that it could take place this month. But we’ve yet to see any actual progress taking place on the ground. Leaving a town in such a state for so many months is reprehensible.
Speaking of which, on the subject of compensation, Vodafone confirmed they’d deal with such things on a case-by-case basis and advised customers to call 191 via the customer care channels (Three UK customers can contact customer support on 333). This of course assumes customers can actually get a viable signal. The wait goes on.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Great post Mark!
I see what you did there 🙂
Yet when they want to, a mobile operator can show up and upgrade an existing site from a monopole to a massive site with loss of service for about 2 days once relevant planning has been sought. The local MP needs to get on the case with this. It should be rushed through.
« Related planning applications (e.g. NP/23/0238/FUL) show that a plan to upgrade the existing 15m High Monopole with a 22.5m High CU Phosco Phase 6 Monopole have been in the works for a couple of years, but progress has been slow. »
Would be interesting to understand why it has been so slow. Is Vodafone/Cornerstone dragging their feet, or it’s the local council? Or was it some NIMBYs, which I hope are not part of those social media comments.
Cell on wheels anyone?! Really ISNT hard to deploy a temp site for this!
Imagine when you can get StarLink direct to mobile, mobile companies will be toast.
After the latest fiasco, foisted on us by the US, being even more reliant on US President’s, & Tech Bro’s, would seem to be most peoples worst nightmare. I’m intensely relaxed about, UK and non US companies managing, our Mobile Network provision…
I’d rather have no signal than give money to Elon.
Can’t wait for DtC to be fair, will be first to order.
O2 Satellite is showing high availability in Tenby for areas where there is no O2 mobile signal. It has service limitations (including non-emergency calls and texts) and is also a chargeable bolt on.
Brilliant article Mark, thank you for drawing attention to this. I along with thousands of local residents, businesses and visitors are grateful for the pressure this will put on the networks to restore our service.
Regarding the planning application NP/23/0238/FUL for the upgraded replacement mast, this was unanimously approved 2 years ago, with the local councillors saying that any improvement in signal is welcome. So it beggars belief that the networks have now made the signal infinitely WORSE by removing mast entirely.
It makes no sense that Vodafone and O2 etc now say they’re “exploring options” about what to do following the removal of the old mast that was starting to rot – simple, just build the upgrade that you already obtained permission for 2 years ago! Honestly ridiculous.
Clear failure of some kind of process here, I expect there is a commercial dispute ongoing behind the scenes which has brought everything to a standstill.
Regarding the mast itself, we have two separate issues: the planning application for replacement/upgrade and the H&S situation precipitating mast removal.
The planning application regarding mast/site upgrade was granted 29 May 2024, 3 weeks or so after the Tree and Landscape Officer of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority had no objections, with the only stipulations being the usual/standard provisos regarding arboricultural impacts seeing as the mast is in the Tenby Conservation Area.
According to the planning approval, Cornerstone then had until 29 May 2029 to start the work.
A Google query seems to indicate the median time to starting work is usually in the region of about 12-18 months. Of course, the H&S situation then became an issue. So I suppose, technically speaking, Cornerstone could say they have started the work when the unsafe mast was removed in around that timeframe since the window to start work opened. Personally, I think that is a stretch too far.
So, to me, it’s Cornerstone, rather than Vodafone or O2, that need to do the primary explaining on the reasons for delay… if there actually is any.
Using a COW for an extended period (typically beyond 28 days) is not necessarily a straightforward solution either and is tied up in whether it may be covered by permitted development, is classed as an emergency situation, and whether prior/retrospective planning approval would be required. So, perhaps the COW route wasn’t followed because it would take too long to get in place before Cornerstone had actually planned to start their actual site upgrade work. But then perhaps Cornerstone’s contractors were delayed on another job. Who knows!? Could be a thousand and one things.
Where Vodafone and O2 (and I daresay the others) have primary responsibility and need to sharpen up their practices by orders of magnitude is in their approach to/communication with customers. In 2026, with mobile comms being as critical as they now are (and the sop about wifi calling should have zero traction beyond about a week or so), it is just not acceptable to say there are no issues with the service weeks and months after there obviously were. I cannot believe they don’t know when a mast stops working. They will generally know within minutes to hours I would think. So they either continually lied or are mega incompetent, and neither scenario of those scenarios is acceptable.
An important story, thanks for highlighting it Mark. Too often, communities can fall into, Communication Black holes. It sounds like it’s a Contract or Access dispute. Perhaps there is resistance to a massive new Mobile mast in the area. Hopefully it gets resolved soon…
Happily there’s been absolutely no resistance at all – the planning application for a taller replacement mast to improve coverage and add 5G was unanimously approved 2 years ago, with even the council themselves saying “any improvements to signal in Tenby are welcome”. I’ve seen hundreds of posts across social media from residents and businesses crying out to have the mast (re)installed – there’s not been one objection, quite the opposite, everyone is up in arms about their loss of service since it was removed. A sign of how the times have changed.
Regarding contract/access disputes – a road closure application was submitted by the construction company and was approved by the council, but the date came and went with absolutely no work happening. The company claims the council refused the road closure – but the council insist that it was approved, and I’m inclined to believe them because they even published a notice of the closure in the local paper. As far as I can tell from thorough local investigations, literally nobody is against this mast – the old one that rotted was there for 22 years with no protests at all, so it should be full steam ahead with the replacement. Sadly we continue to wait.
Meanwhile Skelmersdale has been without most phone service since July 2025 as they (MBNL) took down their main base station on Whelmar House aka The Approach due to “loose bolts that can’t be tightened”. When I asked again in March 2026, I was told it’ll be another 9 months before they will likely be able to do anything about it. The local councillors, and MP have been hopeless in helping.
Unfortunately OFCOM can’t do anything about it as they are busy with VPN ban.
Hmm, shouldn’t OfCon be seeking retribution for corporate denials of the truth, and the associated woefull ‘management’.
Why is it Corporations are allowed to frankly lie and do so without behaviour correcting penalties, it just sends a message to all and sundry truth and honesty nothing to bother with, do what you want, lie and there’s no consequence for imoral behaviours?
If you don’t excercise the rotten apples they go on to rot the rest of the barrel.
All victimised users should be compensated handsomely out the executive pay.
EE have a mast offline that covers the village of Denton in Kent, eNB ID 21587. This has been offline since the 18th March and seems little effort is being made to fix the issue. Currently EE claim they can’t access the site.
It seems that the MNO’s really don’t care. When a mast is offline it can leave people in remote communities completely cut off. Especially when the phone line broadband services are so bad in Denton and similar remote villages.