News
Politicians demand improvements to coverage, ask for update on network rollouts.
U.K. mobile operators have poured scorn on the idea of implementing national roaming, after a group of MPs renewed calls for it to be rolled out.
A report published this week by the British Infrastructure Group (BIG), a cross-party group of ministers led by Conservative MP Grant Shapps, heavily criticised operators for what it sees as their slow progress in reducing mobile not spots.
"It is time to sort out the mobile coverage problem once and for all," the BIG said, suggesting that it is "highly unlikely" that the U.K.’s mobile network operators will hit their target of covering 90% of the country’s landmass by the end of 2017.
"National roaming provides a solution to eliminating partial not spots by enabling mobile consumers to use different mobile operators when they do not receive signal from their primary provider," the BIG said.
It called on the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to undertake an impact assessment to determine whether national roaming could be implemented in a localised fashion, concentrating on areas that need mobile coverage the most.
However, Mobile UK, a lobby group representing mobile operators, said that national roaming would dissuade operators from investing in new infrastructure. This is because rather than install new masts in unprofitable areas, they would instead simply pay a rival to carry traffic on a per use basis.
"Mobile UK does not support the use of national roaming; it is not only technically difficult to do in a localised way, can deliver a poor customer experience and increases operational costs, but also is a significant disincentive to competitive network investment," Mobile UK said, in a statement.
In late 2014, 3UK, EE, O2, and Vodafone pledged to jointly allocate £5 billion of their capex budgets to extending coverage to 90% of the country’s landmass by the end of 2017. The new coverage obligations were agreed a month after the government revealed it was considering rolling out national roaming in a bid to tackle not spots.
However, the BIG’s report alleged that a third of mobile phone users still suffer poor reception at home, and that 28% of all rural areas remain without coverage.
"Mobile coverage in the U.K. has not improved significantly in the past two years," the BIG said, adding that "the key targets of the £5 billion agreement, especially the industry’s commitment to provide mobile voice coverage to 90% of the British geographic area, are highly unlikely to be achieved in time for the deadline next year."
The BIG called for the government to request a progress report in December from the operators.
"The mobile operators are working competitively to meet the commitment of 90% geographic voice coverage by the end of 2017," Mobile UK insisted.
In addition, the BIG also called on Ofcom to draw up a minimum service obligation that if not fulfilled, would allow a mobile customer to exit their contract without incurring early termination fees.
"If an MNO fails to deliver a high standard of service, consumers should be able to terminate their contract free of charge," the BIG said.
