Government announces £1bn 4G Shared Rural Network

The Government last week announced a new £1 billion deal with four of the UK’s leading mobile operators to co-operate on a Shared Rural Network (SRN) to expand 4G coverage to 95 per cent of the UK by 2025.

The agreement will see both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts as well as the building and sharing of new masts. The operators will work together to establish the organisation required to deliver the SRN, providing £532 million of their own investment to help open up existing mast infrastructure to close “almost all partial not-spots” (areas not covered by all operators.

The scheme will also see an investment of £500 million from the government in order to eliminate “total not-spots” (areas without coverage from any operator) through the building of new masts.

Government-owned Emergency Services Network (ESN) infrastructure will also be made available, which, the government claims, could deliver “an additional 2 per cent of geographic coverage per operator.”

Through the Shared Rural Network proposal, each individual operator will reach 92 per cent geographical coverage by 2025, which will collectively take the UK to 95 per cent coverage. From 2026, operators will adopt new, legally-binding license conditions, Ofcom has said.

Ofcom will deliver regular reports on the progress of the plan in its annual Connected Nations report, while there will be interim coverage updates every year until 2025.

A previous Ofcom plan to deliver 90 per cent coverage through a coverage obligation for two operators (part of plans to auction the 700MHz radio spectrum band) will now be revised. The auction will proceed, but the coverage obligation is no longer required.

Ofcom puts present 4G geographic coverage at just 66 per cent of the UK. An Ofcom spokesperson said, “These improvements will make a real difference to mobile customers across the UK, and we’ll ensure they’re legally binding by writing them into operators’ licences. We will also monitor and report on companies’ progress in achieving better coverage.”