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Network analyst firm Streetwave and the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) in England have published an updated map and analysis of 4G and 5G mobile broadband coverage and speeds across the region using bin lorries. The results found that EE provided the best performance on 88% of roads surveyed.
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, refuse 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 access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (https://app.streetwave.co/coverage-checker/). South Yorkshire first publish a map for all this last year – covering around 5,900km of roads.