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back to article RootMetrics finds provinces stagger to 4G

Mobile network sleuth RootMetrics has released some performance data on how well operators are faring in our top provincial cities. From data recently released by the company, we know that overall UK performance increased by 8 per cent, improving in both urban and rural areas. But this hides significant regional variations. …

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  1. Duncan Macdonald

    In parts of the UK even 2G is unavailable

    In parts of the scottish highlands it is not possible to even make a mobile phone call let alone an internet connection. (In January this year in the town of Portree on the Isle of Skye there were parts of the town with no mobile phone coverage - and Portree is the largest town on Skye.)

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    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge
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      Re: In parts of the UK even 2G is unavailable

      I can assure you that you don't have to go "to the end of nowhere"* to have no signal, at all, form any network. Just try around the Lake District and you'll soon find a few notspots !

      * Not that Skye is the end of nowhere, last time I was on Skye I was en-route to "even further away from anywhere", aka Lewis. I vaguely recall finding the coverage there wasn't bad.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: In parts of the UK even 2G is unavailable

      The Scottish borders are not much better and in some ways worse. In one valley BT took away the phone box because it wasn't being used - it couldn't be used because they never bothered to empty the coins. The then BT owned O2 was available in one twenty yard spot halfway up a mountainside. Not much has changed except I now have to use a different operator's sim card to catch the only patchy signal that is sometimes available.

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  2. anothercynic Silver badge

    I'll trust Rootmetrics on this one...

    Ever since they launched, they've been on the penny with their assessments. Vodafone et al would claim that the Harwell Science Campus was 3G covered when Rootmetrics showed it was in fact not (except Three, but there's another story to that). Only 3 years later when O2 and Vodafone started to co-locate did the sciency bunch up on the hill suddenly get not just 3G, but 4G as well.

    As for zero signal, I hear Aston in Oxfordshire is an odd black spot where a colleague couldn't for the life of him get any signal on *any* mobile network, yet within less than a mile would have no problems...

    1 0 Reply
  3. s. pam Silver badge
    Mushroom

    I just want a reliable fucking Signal, still!

    On the damn A4 between Reading & Maidenhead. Is that too fucking much to ask?

    0 1 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its time the Government forced the operators into a national roaming scheme for very remote parts of the country that have zero coverage and are commercially not viable for individual operators to invest in.

    1 1 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    stats dont mirror my experience of real life

    i have a work voda iphone 7, and a personal three oneplus 3. i live and work around sheffield, and fairly often drive down south to see family in reading, and bournemouth. real life use says three has the far better 4g coverage in sheffield, esp at home inside. this is despite being the network with lesser coverage in this assessment. i can even stream iplayer for kids entertainment all the way on three, whereas on voda, i go in and out of signal coverage throughout the trip. i realise that this is a random test, and my real life usage is hardly scientific either, but i thought it worthwhile mentioning.

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