Worcestershire losing millions to poor mobile coverage
"Good, strong, stable mobile phone coverage is as essential to connectivity as any other utility," said Thomas."We've got to up the ante on the mobile phone companies to make sure that they're aware that the connection in Worcestershire is not as good as they say it is."
Councillor Adam Kent, cabinet member for the economy, said "countless" residents had raised the issue with him."We've seen the investment in Worcestershire across broadband, where we've been pushing to get gigabyte coverage for everybody – but at the same time, the mobile phone network seems to have dropped off a cliff," he said."We've got to get the actual data that the mobile phone companies are saying is correct, and then really… we've got to lobby government to take the action to get this improved."
George Gibson. from Streetwave, which provided the technology to collect the data, said it was a UK-wide problem."Our findings highlight the significant gap between modelled data and actual user experience," he said. "People deserve to know the truth about their mobile coverage, and this research gives us the evidence to push for real improvements."
'Imperative to effect change'
Kent said the council was working with operators, but there was a limit to what it could do."What we've got now with this data is the evidence," he said. "We've now got to take the evidence to government and we've got to say something is wrong here."It's absolutely imperative that data now is used to effect change."Thomas confirmed he would call for a parliamentary debate on the issue."I'm going to be playing my role to hold the government, mobile phone companies and the regulator to account to make sure that the service gets better."
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