The UK governments Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has today announced his intention to invest up to £150 million into improving the country's mobile voice and internet data network coverage from 95% to 99% of the population.


The Conservative MP for Penrith (Cumbria), Rory Stewart, first championed the idea during May 2011 (here) when he called for the mobile coverage commitment to be raised all the way up to 98% (800MHz band). This, he claimed, could lead to an additional 2 million people around Britain being able to benefit from improved coverage and would "significantly extend" Mobile Broadband into rural areas.

Unfortunately Stewart's efforts were viewed as unwelcome by the communications regulator, Ofcom UK, which feared that mobile operators might pay less if it included the new commitment (originally estimated to cost an extra £215 million pounds) into their forthcoming auction for new 4G (800MHz and 2.6GHz) Mobile Broadband spectrum.

It's noted that Osborne expects the new commitment to cost far less than the original £200m+ estimate and yet it would allegedly still be able to reach 99% instead of Stewart's proposed 98%. Crucially we do not yet know the details of this announcement and whether or not it will apply to the new 4G licences or a change to existing services.

UPDATE 4th October 2011

Added a comment from the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), a land owners lobby group that covers England and Wales.


UPDATE2 - 4th October 2011

The Communications Consumer Panel (CCP), which was established to advise Ofcom on the consumer interest in the markets it regulates but doesn't appear to connect with actual consumers much, has also welcomed the move.