How to Improve Mobile Signal Strength

Do You Want to Improve Mobile Signal Strength in Your Council?

Most local authorities in the UK recognise the substantial economic and social benefits that reliable mobile networks provide.

Yet many continue to see their residents suffer from poor mobile coverage across rural and urban areas.

Councils have no direct responsibility for dealing with mobile phone signal issues. However, the role local authorities play in improving mobile coverage remains vital.

When residents live in areas operators consider economically unattractive for new infrastructure, local government intervention is often the last lifeline for people wishing to connect to the internet, send messages & make voice calls.

This guide explores the various strategies councils have used over the past decade to strengthen mobile signal for their residents.

Strategy 1 - Offer Public Assets for Deployment

The wayleave problem

One of the enduring issues operators face when improving weak mobile coverage is the time & money spent acquiring sites to host mobile infrastructure through wayleave agreements.

The DCMS consultation on changes to the Electronic Communications Code (ECC) in 2021 highlighted this. The ECC regulates the rights of carriers to install & maintain their apparatus on private & public land.

The consultation found that 80% of wayleave negotiations with landowners for a site take more than six months, and the average negotiation takes 11 months.

These long lead times result from 30% of landowners being unresponsive to approaches. Many others haggle over the compensation for hosting apparatus on their land.

The costs associated with negotiating new sites can put a carrier off improving its network when new deployments become a financial liability. This hesitance is especially common in areas of low population density, where few ‘paying customers’ will benefit from coverage improvements.

Even when coverage improvements are in the works, residents often won’t see the benefits for over a year.

How Norfolk used its buildings to increase network coverage

Councils are ideally placed to help resolve this issue, as Norfolk County Council has shown.

In 2017, Norfolk residents complained that large parts of the county had no indoor or outdoor 4G coverage, despite official coverage maps from the mobile companies and Ofcom showing strong signal.

Norfolk commissioned a drive test to survey mobile coverage along 3,400 miles of roads in the county to begin troubleshooting the issue. After gathering 6 million data points, the survey indicated that the official maps were inaccurate.

Armed with accurate data on connectivity ‘not-spots’, Norfolk used its influence as a local authority. The council identified 200 of its buildings as suitable for hosting cellular base stations.

It now actively makes these sites available for carriers to quickly deploy antennas & towers on, without requiring any compensation payments. This has drastically cut the time and cost of deploying new apparatus.

As a result, ‘not-spot’ areas previously deemed uneconomical for new infrastructure have gained coverage across various operators.

How cities are using street furniture to improve network capacity

Utilising public assets can also increase signal strength in urban authorities.

BT (owner of EE) has begun working with local authorities in towns & cities to mount small cell antennas onto their street furniture, including CCTV columns and lampposts.

BT is rolling out over 300 antennas across participating UK cities, including Birmingham, London, Cardiff & Glasgow.

Small cells are ideal for raising capacity in densely populated areas, ensuring that everyone can get a network connection at the same time. Deploying new cells can also potentially double existing 4G speeds to over 300 Mbps.

These units will also be capable of supporting 5G in the future. Access to street furniture will be vital to future 5G rollouts, as the technology uses higher frequency spectrum bands, which travel shorter distances than current 4G transmissions. Millions of smaller cells will be needed to deliver ubiquitous 5G across UK towns & cities.

What is the DCIA?

After recognising the need for network operators to have streamlined access to deploy infrastructure on public assets, DCMS created the Digital Connectivity Infrastructure Accelerator (DCIA) in 2021.

The government has awarded £4 million to 8 pilot schemes involving local authorities, carriers & private software firms.

These pilots will test digital asset management platforms that allow councils to share information about their assets with operators seamlessly. These platforms will hold details including asset locations, load-bearing capabilities & power availability.

If successful, the government hopes to ensure every council in the UK has a digital map of its assets available to carriers.

You can keep up to date with DCIA developments on GOV.UK.

Strategy 2 - Streamline Planning

The planning problem

Finding suitable sites to deploy new infrastructure isn’t the only delaying factor when expanding mobile coverage. Obtaining planning permission can also be a drawn-out process.

Operators in the UK have permitted development rights, allowing them to build new infrastructure without seeking separate planning permission from local authorities.

However, in many cases, they still need to seek ‘prior approval’ from councils regarding the appearance & siting of apparatus, including for any tower construction. Full planning permission is also required for any new infrastructure that doesn’t meet the permitted development criteria.

How Shropshire & Norfolk councils removed planning barriers

By 2015, Shropshire Council had identified that its residents were suffering from poorer than average mobile coverage.

Recognising how it could help make Shropshire a more attractive place for mobile broadband providers to invest in, the council made a concerted effort to support & speed up the necessary processes.

As a result, a significantly higher proportion of Shropshire’s planning applications are approved than elsewhere. This has established the council as a reliable partner for carriers to engage with.

Likewise, Norfolk cut planning barriers while making its assets available to host equipment.

Norfolk also used the coverage data collected in its drive test of the county to manage residents’ resistance to new deployments in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

When residents saw from Norfolk’s surveys that they had no coverage options, they became much more receptive to new mast deployments in their communities.

Strategy 3 - Lobby for Improvements

The modelling problem

Councils face a recurring problem when trying to gauge signal within their borders, as the mobile coverage checkers provided by the operators are not always a reliable measure of network coverage.

Each coverage checker is created using mathematical models that estimate coverage in the places you live and work. Signal strength is never measured on the ground as real-life users would experience it on their phones.

Carriers also each use different models to calculate coverage, so comparisons between the checkers are not like-for-like.

The limitations of these models also curb operators’ ability to understand their own networks. The average carrier spends £25 million a year on crowdsourced & drive testing data sets to check its network’s coverage.

Unfortunately, crowdsourcing & drive testing also have limitations. Crowdsourced coverage data doesn’t always provide regular insights in areas with low population density, and traditional drive testing is expensive & only carried out in a select few locations.

As a result, the operators themselves don’t always know where their problem areas are.

How Cambridgeshire lobbied successfully

The key to impactful lobbying is having an accurate mobile coverage survey of your local authority. Your council can’t boost signal coverage if no one knows where the problem areas are.

Like many other local authorities, Cambridgeshire County Council has completed such a survey across the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough region.

This data has allowed its Enabling Digital Delivery team to identify coverage ‘not-spots’, including at major business parks, residential areas, main roads & train stations.

The authority has since drawn up a list of ‘Top 20’ priority areas for improvement & shared these with EE, Vodafone, O2 & Three to help them identify solutions.

Collecting independent coverage data allows your council to help the operators identify their ‘not-spots’, while also providing evidence behind coverage complaints that makes them difficult for the operators to ignore.

You can learn more about how mobile coverage surveys can improve your council’s digital strategy.

How Do I Survey Mobile Coverage?

As each of these strategies shows, you need to map the mobile coverage in your council before you can take decisive action.

At Streetwave, we allow you to understand the mobile coverage of EE, O2, Vodafone & Three on a house-by-house basis across your geography.

If you would like to strengthen your strategy for tackling poor mobile signal, find out more about how Streetwave works with local government or get in touch.

Summary

Operators tend to follow the path of least resistance when deploying new equipment. Local authorities that start building this path will be amongst the first to benefit from coverage improvements.

Make sure your council attracts coverage improvements quickly by:

• Offering public assets for deployments
• Streamlining the planning process for deployments
• Lobbying for coverage improvements