The UK governments Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and its Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office have put out a new tender to support their £150 million plan ('Mobile Infrastructure Project') for boosting the country's mobile (voice and internet) network coverage to 99% of the population.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, first announced the move in October 2011 (here). It followed a strong campaign by the Conservative MP for Penrith (Cumbria), Rory Stewart, whom called for the mobile coverage commitment to be raised all the way from 95% to 98% as part of the soon-to-be-auctioned 800MHz (4G) band.

At the time Stewart suggested that this 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. The new tender doesn't add much but it does shed some light on a possible timetable.


Mobile operators and related telecoms companies now have until 30th December 2011 to express an interest in the scheme. BDUK anticipates that the Mobile Infrastructure Project itself should be completed by March 2015 (before the next general election), which is in line with their timetable for the wider broadband market.

It's interesting to note that the DCMS has released this tender ahead of Ofcom finalising the details for its forthcoming auction of 4G (800MHz and 2.6GHz) Mobile Broadband spectrum. So far the government hasn't said whether or not the 99% commitment will apply to the new 4G licences and or a change to existing 3G / 2G services. We suspect they'll do a bit of both.