Vodafone has selected the final group of rural communities for its open access femtocell deployment.
Called Rural Open Sure Signal (ROSS), the competitive scheme was launched in July and aims to provide 3G coverage to 100 unserved villages and hamlets across the U.K. Vodafone urged people to work with their local MPs, councils, and rural action groups to build a case for deploying ROSS in their community.
The competition ran until the 14 October, and the first 60 locations were announced during November. Some of them had participated in an earlier trial of the technology, which consists of a larger, open access version of Vodafone’s Sure Signal femtocell that can be fixed onto the side of buildings and street furniture.
In an email to Total Telecom on Wednesday, Vodafone said it has picked the final 40 communities (see PDF chart).
"These communities have until now suffered from unreliable mobile coverage and slow network speeds. This can be because of the geography of the area or difficulties with planning permissions in places of outstanding natural beauty," said Vodafone.
"The Rural Open Sure Signal programme uses innovative ‘femtocell’ technology to provide an alternative solution to bring mobile access in locations where it isn’t possible for networks to provide coverage through traditional means," the telco said.
The first location, Minchinhampton in the Cotswolds, went live on 7 November.
