The Communications Consumer Panel (CCP) has welcomed Ofcom's new focus on mobile coverage in its latest consultation, called Mostly Mobile (here). The news also follows Ofcom's publication of new UK 3G / Mobile Broadband coverage maps for each of the country’s five main operators (here).



Ofcom has pledged that its new consultation will explore the technical quality of the services consumers receive from mobile devices (e.g. Mobile Broadband speeds). It will also investigate the causes of some persistent mobile coverage 'not-spots' and seek to work with public bodies to develop solutions for the problems.

The maps themselves indicate that there are still vast areas of the country uncovered, not least the Scottish Highlands, central rural areas of Wales and N.Ireland. The far South West of England and Mid-East areas also fall into the extremely sparse side of coverage.

The government’s recent Digital Britain report has already proposed re-farming of existing 2G spectrum bands and using spectrum freed via the Digital Dividend (turning old analogue signals off) for use by 3G services, though it will take more than a year to implement all of those solutions and that will still leave many areas uncovered.