News story

Mobile reception around UK to get massive boost

Areas in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to benefit from £150 million investment in mobile phone coverage.

• From: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Ed Vaizey
• Published: 30 July 2013

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

The funding announced today will allow the Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP) to extend mobile phone coverage to areas where no coverage is currently available. Cornwall, Northumberland, Strabane, Aberdeenshire and Powys are among the areas that stand to benefit most from the project, with the first sites due to “go live” by the end of this year.

Government is providing capital funding for Arqiva to build the new site infrastructure, while mobile network operators EE, Telefonica, Three and Vodafone will be providing coverage from the sites and funding their operating costs for the 20-year life of the project.

Arqiva has begun identifying suitable sites in a phased manner and the map below shows the local authority areas that stand to benefit from MIP investment.

View a full size version of this map on flickr.

Further information

• Press release: Mobile reception around UK to get massive boost (MS Word Document, 2.46 MB)
• Improving mobile phone coverage - what we do

Smart phone pic by Lululemon Athletic on flickr, some rights reserved.

Published 30 July 2013