Ofcom has published some updated research on mobile not-spots, the areas in the UK where mobile coverage is poor or unavailable. It’s found that the coverage checkers provided by mobile networks are based on data that is ‘reasonably accurate’ for outdoor predictions, noting that the checkers are freely provided online and in-store.
When testing coverage, Ofcom noticed that feature phones and entry-level phones generally returned better performance than smartphones for call completion and call setup when in rural areas - although it also notes that these performance differences are likely to be modest. Overall, all handsets in the survey recorded call completion rates of over 95%.
The research showed that all UK networks’ postcode-based coverage checkers provided predictions for outdoor coverage but some networks didn’t show indoor coverage. As a result, Ofcom has asked operators to ensure their coverage checkers include categories for indoor coverage and ‘no coverage’ in the map legends.
[Ofcom report]