Project to Extend UK Rural 4G Mobile Cover Faces 2 Year Delay
Mobile operators Three UK, O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone have reportedly warned the government that the first phase of their £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network project, which aims to extend geographic 4G (mobile broadband) coverage (aggregate) to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025, is at risk of being delayed by 2 years.
The SRN – supported by £500m of public funding and £532m from operators – involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and the demand-led building and sharing of new masts in others between the operators. But the 95% target is only when service is available from at least one operator, while the UK coverage forecast for SRN completion for all operators (i.e. geographic areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all providers) is actually just 84% for the same date.
The target also varies between different parts of the UK. For example, 4G coverage from at least one MNO is expected to reach 98% in England, 91% in Scotland, 95% in Wales and 98% in Northern Ireland. But this falls to 90% in England, 74% in Scotland, 80% in Wales and 85% in Northern Ireland when looking at 4G coverage from all MNOs combined.
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The SRN actually consists of several targets for operators to meet on the way to achieving this goal. One of the first of those targets reflects the deadline for delivery of industry funded coverage improvements in “partial not-spot areas“, which needs to be achieved by June 2024 (at this point 4G should cover 88% of the UK’s landmass). After that, Ofcom has also set a deadline for improvements in “total not-spot areas” of early 2027.
According to the Telegraph (paywall), mobile operators Vodafone, O2 (VMO2) and Three UK have asked the government for a delay of up to two years on the first June 2024 target for coverage of partial not-spot areas. The request is said to reflect the impact of both the COVID-19 pandemic and long-delays (up to 500 days) in being able to secure planning permission for the sites (people often object to the building of new mobile masts etc.).
On top of that, there is some speculation that the planned merger between Vodafone and Three UK may be contributing to the delay, although both operators have denied that. But as MP Mark Pawsey recently pointed out, if Vodafone and Three UK cannot achieve their roll-out targets, then why should the government believe the mobile coverage commitments they’ve made as part of the proposed merger? It’s a fair point.
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We should point out that EE isn’t mentioned above because they had already built a lot of masts in rural areas, but no agreement was ever reached over sharing access to that. Instead, EE is more focused on upgrading existing sites and the part of the SRN that involves helping to build new masts – sharing those that are built with support from public funding.
A Three UK spokesman said:
“We are on track to deliver the overall January 2027 target for 4G geographic coverage under the SRN programme having already built 100 sites and secured planning on 80pc of the new sites that we have committed to. However, we have recently written to the government asking for an extension to the June 2024 interim target which was agreed immediately prior to the Covid lockdowns and has been impacted by delays associated with the pandemic.”
A Vodafone spokesman said:
“We remain committed to delivering on all elements of the SRN programme and have successfully introduced 4G to rural locations across the UK as part of the wider project which is due for delivery by January 2027.”
A spokesman for O2 (VMO2) said:
“We’re continuing to invest and deliver these upgrades at pace and we expect to either meet or come very close to meeting our own individual target. We are in regular discussions with government and industry, and remain committed to delivering the full benefits of the SRN as soon as possible.”
The Government itself noted that the mobile operators are “on track to meet” their targets – as overseen by Ofcom, although this appears to be contradicted by Three UK’s statement above. But the regulator is due to review SRN progress next year, and it now seems probable that this may result in a change to the current plan and timescale.
The news of a potential delay probably won’t come as too much of a surprise to ISPreview’s regular readers, as past mobile infrastructure projects have often struggled to achieve their targets – either on time or more generally. Finding suitable sites, obtaining power supply and fibre backhaul – particularly in remote rural areas, as well as securing the necessary permissions through the planning system, are all known bugbears.
The government have recently introduced new legislation to help ease some of the challenges, particularly around infrastructure sharing, upgrades to existing sites and taller masts. But Ofcom has only recently begun to consult (here) on adopting some of those changes into their latest update to the related Electronic Communications Code (ECC).
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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 and Linkedin.
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In Dorset Verwood and Ashley Heath really need the mobile phone companies to work together to provide a decent service.
Might be worth exploring if any mobile masts were planned to solve that in the past, but ended up being rejected by local complaints. Finding that to often be a common issue. Sometimes the operators desire to deliver better coverage, but their plans get blocked at local level.
The local councils should stop refusing the masts then.
The Government states:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/planning-rules-for-5g-masts-in-england/
The local councils should also not refuse applications for mobile masts on health grounds where ICNIRP guidelines are met.
Locally, Verwood councillors state that the mast planning application process is vague.
https://verwoodtoday.co.uk/2023/04/verwood-councillors-speak-up-over-poor-telecoms-infrastructure-in-the-town/
Looks like Verwood and Ashley Heath needs councillors that do not reject mast applications, as the Government has made it perfectly clear what has prior approval and what is needed to reach the coverage goal.
How big does an area have to be to constitute a not-spot? A whole post-code? A couple of houses? A dip in the road? Is there anywhere a definition in these terms of what a not-spot is?
A 2 year delay to achieving even the partial coverage target for 4G, but the operators are still pressing ahead with 3G coverage,leaving rural areas with, at best, a 2G service
ommitted “scrapping” before 3G coverage
SRN concerns areas with no coverage on any tech from any network. They don’t have 3G, so turning off 3G won’t make a difference
3G is being switched off… so thats incorrect.
@Christopher j. As others have pointed out the coverage maps are ridiculously optimistic, and hopefully the rollout of SRN will also improve coverage in the areas that are not spots even though not indicated as such
There has been no clarity whatsoever on what is deemed “coverage”. Is there some metric by which Ofcom judge an area as covered?
My parents have one bar of band 20 in small parts of their home, does this count as covered?
I presume it’s worked off the coverage maps, which I think are pretty optimistic, and do not take enough account of natural barriers to signal such as woods and undulations in the ground.
I’ve just been looking again at the ofcom map for my area – a sea of dark green good coverage for O2, and yet I cannot get a smart meter because of “poor mobile signal”.
Ofcom availability checker:
https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage
does not match up to https://www.cellmapper.net/map
If rural communities want better coverage they need to find ways to engage with the NIMBY’s as often the biggest hurdle is planning. I do think that newer backhaul options like LEO satellite might help with giving more placement options.
Not convinced it’s NIMBYs that’s always the problem – just sparse population and natural obstacles to coverage meaning you’d need a lot of kit (and money) to cover the area completely.
Even if a community is crying out for coverage if it’s too small the mobile operator just isn’t interested.
Isn’t it time we switched off 4G,
now that we have 5G
No because not everywhere has 5G and with 3G being turned off, your proposal would leave residents with either a 5G signal if they are lucky enough to have one or a 2G signal which is too slow for the typical data usages those days see.
Not forgetting that standalone 5G is still a number of years away to similar levels of comprehensive 4G coverage as Vodafone is only just starting to roll it out in select area to selected customers, with comprehensive 5G standalone coverage not likely to be in place until 2030 at thd earliest if not later.
Far better to keep 4G, have 5G overlaid where possible and continue to remove 3G as 3G is far less effective than 4G is.
SRN progress in my rural area (West Devon) has been virtually zero to date. The whole area is dominated by partial not-spots, no particular operator dominates, total not-spots are actually quite rare. What’s really disappointing is lack of progress sharing the existing cell sites – this has got to be far easier than building entirely new ones, but the MNO’s appear unwilling to do so.
It’s just ridiculous that there’s the Electronic Communication Code Rights and the requirement to then get Prior Approval from local councils, some of which just say no to just about everything.
Note that the quoted Shared Rural Network coverage is for outdoor signal – not made clear from the publicity
The UK has become world leaderin incompetence, poor management and misinformation.
Its interesting to hear about delays. I work for a Local Council in Scotland, and have seen numerous planning applications come in for new masts in not-spots, and partial not-spots. The Council is actually positive in the applications, but its local residents who pile in objections. We are working on community engagement to advise residents why these new masts are so important, but its textbook stuff – rural residents are the most disadvantages with regards to connectivity, and they are the residents that will block improvements. At least 3 new masts in the last 2 years have been scrapped, not because the Council blocked it, but because the community did.
One of the earliest SRN press releases was about a planning application for a new mast in Catlowdy, Cumbria. The press release was Feb 2022, planning was granted May 10th 2022.
No sign of any mast yet, however. I would suggest the lack of SRN progress is not entirely down to planning problems.
The networks love to lie. They have upgraded far more large town and city phones masts to 5G (including adding new sites) than they have upgraded rural masts to 4G. In the east of England its like 3 or 4 masts added or upgraded in rural areas to 4G while cities and towns have seen dozens of 5G masts going up.
The networks are barely even putting in any planning permissions (only a small handful submitted in the past year across all networks for rural areas in the east of England) and what is approved is subject to an indefinite delay by the networks for even a simple radio swap at an existing mast.