News
The UK mobile operators will all be promoting the campaign on their various platforms
This week, Mobile UK, the trade association for the UK’s mobile network operators (MNOs), has launched its Better Connected Rural Campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the benefits of connectivity to rural communities.
The campaign began today with a podcast episode featuring Iain Milligan, Chief Network Officer of Three UK, which discussed how mobile connectivity is transforming the UK’s agricultural industry.
Mobile UK’s Director of Policy and Communications Gareth Elliott will also host a vlog of a trip to the remote Scottish island of South Uist, meeting with local residents and council leaders to discuss the importance of connectivity in remote locations.
Throughout this week, Mobile UK will be posting and sharing content using the hashtag #BetterConnectedRural.
All four of the UK’s MNOs are part of the Shared Rural Network (SRN), a joint initiative between the UK government and the MNOs to significantly improve rural mobile coverage. The project involves sharing infrastructure between the operators to ensure that coverage gaps are filled, as well as deploying new shared sites in hard-to-reach locations. By 2025, the SRN aims to see 4G coverage expanded to cover 95% of the UK’s geographic area.
EE is currently the only operator to have completed its first phase of its SRN rollout, achieving its 2024 targets in January, six months ahead of schedule.
To complete the first phase of the project, operators have to get rid of coverage ‘partial not-spots’ by extending the reach of their 4G networks. ‘Partial not-spots’ are defined as areas that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all of them.
For EE to have completed this phase before its rivals should not come as a great surprise; as the UK’s largest operator, most of this target could be achieved by upgrading the company’s existing sites. EE’s rivals, on the other hand, all need to deploy more new sites to meet their own commitments.
In fact, this deployment process is taking longer than hoped, with Virgin Media O2, Three UK, and Vodafone jointly requesting a deadline extension of 18 months in order to hit their SRN coverage targets. This request was rejected by the UK government, putting additional pressure on these operators to accelerate their efforts in the coming months.
Join Iain Milligan on the day one CXO keynote panel at this year’s Connected Britain, 11-12 September in London. Get discounted tickets here!
Also in the news:
NTT to launch new AI company ‘NTT AI-CIX’
Thousands of kms of fibre could be left underutilised warns asset reuse specialist
IOH launches Southeast Asia’s largest digital intelligence operations centre