EE Has Upgraded or Built Over 40 4G Mobile Masts in North Yorkshire
Mobile operator EE (BT) has announced that they’ve upgraded or built more than 40 mobile masts in North Yorkshire (England) over the last two years, which is part of their commitment to expand rural 4G (mobile broadband) connectivity under the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project.
The five most recent masts to go live in the past few months have been used to help serve the villages of Chapel-le-Dale, Rievaulx, Blubberhouses, Danby Wiske and Terrington. Scenic tourist sites like Fewston Reservoir and Ingleborough Mountain – including large parts of the Yorkshire Three Peaks route – have similarly benefitted. The upgrades also cover transport routes including the A59, A167, B1257, and parts of the East Coast Main Line (railway).
The SRN – supported by £500m of public funding and £532m from operators – is a scheme that 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 (MNO).
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Naturally locations like North Yorkshire stand to benefit the most, not least because it’s both England’s largest county and one where 85% of the area is classed as rural or super sparse, while also containing two national Parks – the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.
Greg McCall, Chief Networks Officer at BT Group, said:
“North Yorkshire is England’s largest county and is famous for its rolling dales and close-knit rural communities. These new 4G upgrades will not only mean residents will be able to stay connected to the people and things they love most, but businesses and community groups can use our network to offer new services and experiences to the millions of tourists who visit every year.
Having upgraded more than 1,600 rural locations so far under the Shared Rural Network programme, EE has gone further than anyone to deliver the far-reaching mobile connectivity that rural communities rely on across the UK.”
The progress follows EE’s recent announcement, which saw them complete SRN upgrades for partial 4G not-spot areas (i.e. the first SRN phase) some six months ahead of the June 2024 target (here). At the same time some of their rivals have been warning that their own efforts might be delayed by as much as two full years (here).
Take note that the 95% target varies between regions, thus cover from at least one operator is expected to reach 98% in England, 91% in Scotland, 95% in Wales and 98% in N.Ireland by completion. But this falls to 90% in England, 74% in Scotland, 80% in Wales and 85% in N.Ireland when looking at coverage from all operators combined.
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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Is the picture illustrative? If not, why don’t they paint them green so that they at least blend in a bit more with the landscape?
Sometimes they do, sometimes they make them look like trees etc. It just depends on the specific requirements and challenges of each site/location.
I’ve popped in a picture of their SRN lattice mast from the Lake District, which is a nice example of the ones they often use.
If they want to make them look like trees, then why not paint the main pole brown and the top antenna part green?
Interesting, thanks Mark. It would be brilliant if the Government could target some of the tree planting grants around industrializing buildings and larger infrastructure. Something like a Hybrid Poplar and Douglas Fir mix would provide some of the fastest growth and all year-round screening with a natural landscape appearance.
Hybrid poplar grow at 2+ metres a year and can be used for biomass fuel with pollarding and coppicing before they reach near the height of any antennas.
Just imagine it’s a pollarded tree.
How many of these sites are off the back of ESN – and has that counted towards EE funding?
Maybe to increase the 84% coverage MNOs should be forced to allow their customers to free roam onto other UK MNO networks at any location that has no coverage.
Maybe a protocol that allows the request to be verified against the cell ID location before roam is granted. (I.e. not just allow it when the area is theoretically covered by the customer’s operator)
Something certainly needs to happen, basically implementing the S in SRN, how it is achieved doesn’t matter to most people. Devon is covered in partial not-spots but no single operator has any coverage dominance, so it’s awful here unless you are a foreign visitors who can roam across all 4, they get great service..
When will towns like Slaithwaite get a ret a reliable service?
Incredible