The Scottish Government’s £28.75m 4G Infill Programme (S4GI), which via WHP Telecoms aims to improve rural mobile voice and broadband coverage by building new masts (mostly tackling notspots across the Highlands and Islands), has given a progress update to confirm that 27 out of the 55 planned masts have gone live.
Mobile operators, including EE, O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone, have already agreed to provide a 4G service via many of the new mast sites, once built. However, the vast majority of the live sites are currently only providing a service via EE’s network, with only a few exceptions playing host to O2 and or Vodafone. By comparison, Three UK is nowhere to be seen.. yet.
By the summer of 2023, the programme is anticipated to have delivered up to around 55 masts across Scotland’s rural regions. All of this should help to complement the new £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN), which aims to extend UK geographic 4G mobile coverage to 95% by the end of 2025. Not to mention the 10Mbps+ Universal Service Obligation (USO) for broadband, which often falls back to a 4G fix.v