{"id":5587,"date":"2018-12-18T16:36:55","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T16:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/remote-areas-stuck-in-data-slow-lanes\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T16:36:55","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T16:36:55","slug":"remote-areas-stuck-in-data-slow-lanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/remote-areas-stuck-in-data-slow-lanes\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote areas stuck in data slow lanes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Towns and cities are still much better served by mobile and fixed communication services
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Large parts of the UK are “poorly served” by broadband and mobile services, a report from communications regulator Ofcom<\/a> says.<\/p>\n

Rural areas suffered most when it came to browsing speeds and network availability, the annual Connected Nations study revealed.<\/p>\n

Only 41% of rural premises received a mobile data link of of 2Mbps or higher, it found. <\/p>\n

In urban areas, 83% of places enjoy similar or higher mobile data speeds. <\/p>\n

Ofcom said there were some remote areas that still had no access to either mobile or fixed network connections.<\/p>\n

“Mobile coverage has improved across the UK this year – but too many people and businesses are still struggling for a signal,” said Philip Marnick, Ofcom’s spectrum group director, in a statement.<\/p>\n

About 91% of the UK’s landmass received good mobile data reception from at least one operator and 66% from all four operators, said the report.<\/p>\n

“We’re planning rules that would extend good mobile coverage to where it’s needed,” Mr Marnick said.<\/p>\n

Ofcom’s rules had been updated so spectrum for mobile services would become available more quickly, he said. <\/p>\n

In addition, operators were being allowed to put antennas on 500 new transmitter sites to ensure outdoor data coverage improved “significantly”. <\/p>\n

This would eventually lead to rural communities enjoying the mobile coverage people had come to expect in towns and cities, Mr Marnick said.<\/p>\n

No signals<\/h2>\n

About 3% of rural premises in Scotland and 2% in Wales were currently unable to receive either a “good” mobile signal or a “decent” fixed broadband service, said Ofcom.<\/p>\n

By “good” Ofcom means access to 4G mobile coverage indoors from at least one operator and by “decent” it means a broadband speed of at least 10Mbps. <\/p>\n

The percentage of rural homes and offices that could receive data connections from all four UK operators in 2018 was 41%, compared only only 24% in 2017, it revealed. <\/p>\n

Ofcom estimated that 39,000 properties, 0.1% of the UK total, could receive neither good mobile or decent broadband.<\/p>\n

And without “alternative technologies”, continuing work to improve mobile coverage and extend fixed broadband may not help the most remote places that lacked both mobile and fixed access.<\/p>\n

Rob Baillie, from price comparison site Compare My Mobile, said many consumers were faced with a stark choice when picking a network.<\/p>\n

“People should not have to choose what mobile network they go with based on the quality of coverage and signal in the area they live in – but that’s been the reality for some time,” he said.<\/p>\n

He added: “Consumers should only have to focus on the best deals available to them but instead they’ve had to opt for the safest bet, rather than the cheapest option.”<\/p>\n

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Image copyright<\/span>
\n Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n Fast full-fibre connections were steadily becoming more widely available, said Ofcom
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Fixed lines<\/h2>\n

The report also gathered information about broadband services and found that superfast services, offering speeds of at least 30Mbps, were now available to 94% of homes and businesses. <\/p>\n

Almost two million homes, 6%, could get full-fibre connections that rushed data around at speeds of up to 1Gbps. <\/p>\n

And significant investment by communications companies should boost the availability of such services over the next few years.<\/p>\n

But despite the growing availability of higher speed broadband, many people were still not taking up the fastest service available in their area, said the regulator.<\/p>\n

Only 45% of premises were signed up to superfast broadband despite the service being available to more than double that number, it said. <\/p>\n

Ofcom has launched the Boost Your Broadband campaign to help educate consumers and businesses about faster services in their region or neighbourhood.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image caption Towns and cities are still much better served by mobile and fixed communication services Large parts of the UK are “poorly served” by broadband and mobile services, a report from communications regulator Ofcom says. Rural areas suffered most when it came to browsing speeds and network availability, the annual Connected Nations study revealed. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}