PM Gets The Message On 4G Service
AS THE holiday season gathers pace, David Cameron put the spotlight onto mobile phone coverage in the UK’s vacation hotspots and other remote areas.
He revealed that he returned to London early from Cornwall in two of the last three years because mobile phone coverage was too grim for staying in touch.
His favourite seaside haven is a network blackspot.
As a result, he confided, he made regular drives up to a local clifftop to catch a signal and make calls.
That might explain why the government is looking at whether it can force the big operators to share their network infrastructure in areas of prevalent poor signals. A national roaming solution where a phone can pick up any available signal, when it can’t find one from the contracted operator, would be a significant service improvement for us all.
The operators, though, appear to be pursuing a different approach for places where their signals cannot reach. They are looking to 4G. Currently 4G users might say that making calls is as hit and miss as it was on 3G, but that is not a shock.
There is, yet, no voice over 4G service, 4G signals are used only for data. Calls from 4G phones are presently routed over the older 3G, or sometimes even 2G, networks.
The good news, however, is that the 800MHz frequency band, sold off in February’s 4G auction, has a far greater reach than other mobile telephony frequencies and is well suited to penetrating rural and coastal areas.
EE is leading the charge and will soon launch a trial of calls over 800MHz in the poorly served depths of Oxfordshire.
