Streetwave UK to survey mobile broadband coverage across Barnet Council
Network analyst firm Streetwave has confirmed that they’ve been chosen by the Barnet Borough Council in London to conduct a real-world study of mobile network (4G, 5G) coverage and data speeds across the area, harnessing 723km of the borough’s road network – testing all three of the primary mobile networks – EE, O2 and VodafoneThree (Vodafone and Three UK).
Just to recap. Streetwave works by harnessing waste bin (refuse) collection lorries to map mobile network coverage and data speeds across various parts of the UK (e.g. here, here, here, here and here). In this setup, rubbish collection trucks are installed with several off-the-shelf Smartphones using special software, which run continuous network tests (once every 20 metres in rural areas and 5m in urban areas) as the vehicles go around their routes.
The data they collect is often then used by local authorities to help identify areas that may require additional intervention in order to improve local mobile coverage and or network capacity, while also giving locals free access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (https://app.streetwave.co/coverage-checker/).
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The survey is due to be conducted twice over the next 12-months, which will enable the local authority to see how local mobile connectivity changes over time.
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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