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Telecoms network analyst firm Streetwave has today published the results of a new study, which uses data collected from bin lorries to show how real-world mobile network (4G, 5G) coverage and data speeds vary across Northern Ireland between rural and urban areas, as well as via different mobile operators. Suffice to say, rural connectivity has a lot of catching-up to do.
The company usually 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, rubbish collection 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. But in this case Streetwave used their own drive testing teams to conduct the work.
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 local people free access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (https://app.streetwave.co/coverage-checker/).