North Yorkshire County Council are working with Arqiva to improve mobile phone coverage in #notspots. A #notspot is an area of no mobile coverage. These are prevalent in rugged environments, which increases the amount of radio shadow that masts create.
Arqiva won an open tender to supply additional mobile phone network masts to improve the coverage. Identification of a suitable site and provision of service by a cellular provider releases funds. Funding comes from the UK Government’s Local Growth Fund, via a grant to the County Council. The York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership (YNYER LEP) secures £1mn of funding for the improvement.
I’m not sure if this also offers an expedited planning process to support the masts, especially since the most significant regions of #notspots are the two National Parks, the North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales. Businesses in these areas are suffering as they are also in the regions that have slow ADSL. A mobile modem and good quality LTE signal will provide better performance. In comparison, these areas deliver poor ADSL speeds of less than 10Mb/s (downstream, with an even slower upstream rate).
“This contract represents a significant step forward in our efforts to expand more widely high-quality mobile phone coverage for residents and businesses. We already have a good relationship with mobile network operators and have been commended nationally on our forward-thinking approach. Strong mobile coverage is an important element of our support for maintaining and creating successful, thriving communities in all parts of North Yorkshire.” – County Councillor Don Mackenzie, Executive Member for Access.
“This government is committed to boosting economic growth across the whole of the Northern Powerhouse and building an economy which is fit for the future. Strong mobile phone coverage is vital to economic growth and ensuring that communities are connected. I’m delighted that £1m of Local Growth Funding is being invested in this project, which will ensure businesses in rural areas of North Yorkshire have the access to 4G coverage they need to thrive and grow.” – Jake Berry, Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth
“As the UK’s largest independent infrastructure provider we work with many organisations, including local authorities and mobile network operators, to provide connectivity services to businesses and residents across the UK. The benefits of having independent infrastructure is that multiple customers providing many different services can make use of the masts and towers that are built. We look forward to working with North Yorkshire County Council and the mobile network operators to build these additional sites to improve coverage under this grant agreement.” – David Crawford, Managing Director, Telecoms & M2M, Arqiva
“Like our colleagues at the council, the LEP is committed to improving connectivity across our rural powerhouse. We were delighted to support this innovative project that really starts to tackle connecting our most rural locations.” – David Dickson, Chair of the YNYER LEP Infrastructure and Joint Assets Board
Sources: Contract awarded for masts to strengthen mobile coverage, North Yorkshire Country Council
