Broadband and Mobile Phones: Shropshire

(asked on 21st February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to improve (a) mobile phone and (b) broadband coverage in (i) The Wrekin constituency and (ii) Shropshire; and what the timeframe is for improving that coverage.


Answered by
Matt Warman Portrait
Matt Warman
This question was answered on 2nd March 2020

The Government announced in-principle support in October 2019 for the Mobile Network Operators’ (MNOs) Shared Rural Network (SRN) proposal. The proposal would share investment costs between the mobile network operators and government and increase 4G mobile coverage throughout the United Kingdom to 95% by 2025. It will be underpinned by a legally binding coverage commitment from each operator.

The Government's in-principle support is subject to detailed negotiations. While this is not yet a done deal, the Prime Minister has made improvements to rural mobile coverage part of his first 100 days pledge. I will continue to work with the sector to make that happen, but I will also explore all possible options to meet our mobile coverage ambitions, including rural roaming.

The exact site deployment plans and timescales will be managed by the MNOs themselves in order for them to best deliver the agreed coverage outcomes. So until the operators’ final radio planning exercise is complete, neither the Government nor the operators will know the precise location or number of new or upgraded masts. However, the operators will be consulting with local communities as the SRN rolls out across the UK.

According to Thinkbroadband, currently, 93.7% of Shropshire has access to superfast broadband - up from 5% in 2011. This improvement is thanks to the investment that both the government and Shropshire County council have made towards superfast rollout in Shropshire, including parts of Wrekin.

Taking into account the Council’s current contracts with British Telecommunications plc (BT) and Airband Community Internet Ltd, together with additional commercial commitments, Shropshire County Council expect 97% of premises in the Council area will have access to superfast broadband by 2021.

The Wrekin constituency currently has 97% of premises with access to superfast speeds, up from 72% in 2011.

Our Voucher scheme through the Rural Gigabit Connectivity Programme is available to all rural areas in the UK and there are a number of providers who have been very active in utilising this and our previous voucher schemes in Shropshire, for example SWS Broadband who are headquartered in Shrewsbury.

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