UK Operators Make Rural Coverage Deal Worth £1B

The UK government has accepted a proposal made by operators to pool resources to address 4G coverage gaps in rural areas of the country. A deal will be worth more than £1 billion and should deliver access to 95% households in the country by 2025.

Terms of the plan, which foresees extending coverage to 280,000 additional premises and 16,000km of roads in the countryside, are not yet finalised, with a formal agreement expected early in 2020. The deal would result in all four operators investing in a shared network of new and existing masts to “close almost all partial not-spots, areas where there is currently only coverage from at least one, but not all, operators“.

The plan outlines an investment of £530 million by EE, O2 UK, 3 UK and Vodafone UK, with the government committing up to £500 million to ensure the agreement also includes areas currently not covered by any operator. As part of the deal, the UK government would also allow operators to access infrastructure built as part of an Emergency Services Network deployment, which would deliver up to an additional 2% of geographic coverage per operator in rural locations.

Officials expect the greatest coverage improvements to be felt in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. “Brokering an agreement for mast sharing between networks alongside new investment in mobile infrastructure will mean people get good 4G signal no matter where they are or which provider they’re with“, UK digital secretary Nicky Morgan said.