Network analyst firm Streetwave has revealed that they’ve won another contract, this time via the Derbyshire County Council (DCC) in England, to map 4G and 5G mobile broadband coverage across another 10,000km of the UK’s road network in the East Midlands of England, using bin lorries.
Streetwave have spent the past 1-2 years harnessing waste (bin / refuse) collection trucks to map mobile network coverage and speeds in 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 software from Streetwave on top, 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 then being used by local authorities to help identify areas that may require additional intervention in order to improve local mobile coverage and or network capacity. In addition, members of the public have also been given access to some of this data via address-based coverage checkers and interactive maps (example).
The new deal with DCC will thus see mobile coverage quality being benchmarked across every road in each of the councils listed below – nearly 10,000 km in total. As above, Streetwave states that “the 1,600,000 people living in the region will also be given the ability to check which mobile networks have the highest performance outside addresses of interest through [a] free to use coverage checker“.
Councils Included in the DCC Streetwave Survey
1. Derbyshire County Council
2. Amber Valley Borough Council
3. Bolsover District Council
4. Chesterfield County
5. Derbyshire Dales District Council
6. Erewash Borough Council
7. High Peak Borough Council
8. North East Derbyshire District Council (NEDDC)
9. South Derbyshire DCThe survey is likely to then be extended to 8 more councils in the region:
10. Nottinghamshire County Council
11. Ashfield District Council
12. Bassetlaw District Council
13. Broxtowe Borough Council
14. Gedling Borough Council
15. Mansfield District Council
16. Newark and Sherwood District Council
17. Rushcliffe Borough Council
In addition, we understand that Streetwave will be announcing another contract with the Liverpool City Region next week too.