UK Mobile Coverage

MPs Urge Mobile Roaming Within the UK

Published: Tuesday 1st November 2016

Mobile phone companies must allow customers to move between networks in parts of the UK, where reception is poor, a group of MPs has been told.

Mobile phone companies must allow customers to move between networks in parts of the UK, where reception is poor, a group of MPs has been told.

The Infrastructure Group UK said that foreign visitors can obtain better coverage because they are not tied to a supplier, and can obtain the strongest signal.

The report said 17 million customers had poor reception at home, and named 525 areas without mobile phone coverage.

Roaming allows customers' phones to use another operator's network if their own service provider is not available in a particular area.

90 backbench MPs have called on ministers to make the radical changes, including the law to change to allow national roaming in Britain, to make it cheaper for customers to switch suppliers and to identify the worst telephone networks.

The report says that mobile phone coverage in the UK has not significantly improved since 2014, when the government agreed a £5 billion investment agreement with the network operators.

The agreement is expected to fail to achieve its goal of providing coverage to 90% of the geographical area of the United Kingdom by late 2017.

This article is a summary; the source article is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37808943

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