Mobile Phones: Rural Areas
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help increase mobile phone coverage.
Answered by Chris Bryant
The government wants all areas of the UK to benefit from reliable and good quality mobile coverage.
4G geographic coverage from at least one mobile operator has now reached over 95% of the UK landmass through the Shared Rural Network. The programme is continuing to deliver 4G mobile connectivity to places where there is either limited or no coverage.
Our ambition is for all populated areas having higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030, and we are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition. As part of this work, the government intends to reform the planning system to make it easier to build digital infrastructure. We have also increased funding for our 5G Innovation Region programme to £43 million to drive adoption of standalone 5G across key sectors.
We will continue working with Ofcom to ensure that their coverage reporting is more accurate.
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