The 4G Mobile Infill Project in Scotland Benefitted 2,211 Premises

The Scottish Government (SG) has revealed that their £28.75m 4G Infill Programme (S4GI), which completed earlier this year (here) after spending several years improving mobile voice and data (broadband) coverage by building 55 new masts in remote rural areas, has benefitted 2,211 homes and businesses.

The initiative, which was part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and delivered in partnership with WHP Telecoms (the main infrastructure provider), Cellnex UK and the Scottish Futures Trust, might not sound like particularly good value for money when you just look at the premises passed figure.

However, it’s important to remember that mobile network coverage also exists to serve people moving around outside of homes and offices, such as visitors to tourist destinations, commuters and the emergency services etc. Residents and business owners have similarly highlighted a range of benefits since the programme’s completion, including wider online customer bases and better connectivity for communities during fixed broadband outages.

Surveys and focus groups also flagged flexible working patterns, improved employee productivity and easier access to online learning materials and jobs. In addition, access to a 4G connection was given as a factor for people remaining in or moving to the areas.

Tom Arthur, SG Employment and Investment Minister, said:

“Although Telecoms responsibility is reserved to the UK Government, the Scottish Government has long recognised the vital importance of good digital connectivity – both for work, for business and for day-to-day life.

S4GI is an excellent example of strategic investment delivering multiple benefits. This is about creating opportunities for businesses, improving daily life and ensuring no one – even the hardest to reach – is left behind in the digital era.

The availability of 4G services has proven to be transformational for residents and businesses in these 55 areas included as part of the programme, and we are sharing the lessons learned through months of complex build and collaboration with the UK Government so that they may benefit the ongoing rollout of the Shared Rural Network programme.”

According to the SG, all of the new mast sites are in rural locations with 67% in ‘very remote rural areas’, 18% in ‘remote rural areas’, and 15% in ‘accessible rural areas’. In terms of deprivation, while there are no mast sites in the 20% most deprived data zones in Scotland (as defined by SIMD), all of the mast sites fall into the most deprived 10% when only the SIMD access domain is considered.

In total, at this point, EE is providing services on 51 out of the 55 masts in the programme and was sadly the only operator on 35 out of the 55 mast sites. As for the other operators, Three UK is currently present on just a single mast site, while O2 and Vodafone are present on 3 sites and all of O2, Vodafone and EE combined can be found at 16 sites.

Suffice to say, there’s room for improvement, although coverage does vary between operators and some may see no tangible benefit to deploying at certain sites (i.e. the risk of duplicating pre-existing coverage or too few potential customers).

However, it’s worth noting that the expansion of 4G and 5G mobile coverage in Scotland will not stop. The UK government’s wider and industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project is separately working to extend geographic 4G mobile coverage to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025 (91% in Scotland) via a mix of mast sharing and new mast builds.

Scottish 4G Infill Programme Evaluation
https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-4g-infill-programme-evaluation/