A major newspaper has reported that the Government may be looking to reduced their funding commitment for the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme and its efforts to extend 4G mobile (mobile broadband) coverage into remote rural areas. The move could significantly cut the number of mobile masts due to be built with public funding.
The SRN, which is supported by £501m of committed public funding and £532m from operators, involves both the reciprocal sharing of existing masts in certain areas and the demand-led building and sharing of new masts in others between the operators (MNO). The target is to extend geographic 4G coverage (aggregate) to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025, which falls to 84% when only considering the areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all providers.
The programme typically consists of two main targets. The first target, which was achieved around the end of last summer, involved the delivery of industry funded coverage improvements in Partial Not-Spot (PNS) areas (i.e. areas that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all), which Ofcom says has already extended 4G to cover 88% of the UK’s landmass (here).
The second target involves tackling Total Not-Spot (TNS) areas by early 2027. Ofcom’s licence obligations commit each individual operator to increase its 4G coverage to 90% of the UK’s landmass by January 2027 – with these individual obligations supporting the overall target of 95% by December 2025.
So far most of the early work on this project has typically involved private investment from EE, O2, Vodafone and Three UK, although over the past year we’ve also seen government-funded mast upgrades and new site builds taking place in other parts of the country (examples here, here, here, here and here). For example, last week it was reported that a total of 30 publicly funded mast upgrades had now gone live across the United Kingdom (here).
What’s the latest SRN development?
According to industry sources speaking to The Telegraph, the UK government appears to be looking to cut back their £500m funding commitment for the TNS phase, which could potentially reduce the number of new mobile masts being built via public investment from 260 to just 60.
However, this is claimed to be partly because mobile operators have made good progress and such a reduction would allegedly only have a limited impact, although the specifics about the impact or how much public funding might be returned are unclear.
Mobile operators, which feel they’re doing their part and are said to have been lobbying for any affected funding to be reinvested to help improve coverage across the UK’s railways, are reportedly concerned that the government may simply be looking to cut costs and not reinvest it into mobile connectivity.
A government spokesman said:
“It is wrong to suggest there will be any let up in our determination to upgrade connectivity for our rural communities. Mobile network operators have previously said they can deliver the objectives of the Shared Rural Network with far fewer new masts, benefiting communities and reducing the impact on landscapes. We continue to work with operators on the details.
“The Shared Rural Network has already led to hundreds of mast upgrades and helped bring 4G coverage to over 95pc of the UK.”
According to Ofcom’s latest data, between 88-89% of the UK’s landmass (geographic coverage) can now access a 4G network if you look across all operators (up from 80-87% last year) or 95% from just one operator. The SRN target varies between regions, thus 4G cover from at least one operator is expected to reach 98% in England, 91% in Scotland, 95% in Wales and 98% in N.Ireland. But this falls to 90% in England, 74% in Scotland, 80% in Wales and 85% in N.Ireland when looking at coverage from all MNOs combined.
The Labour Party’s 2024 General Election Manifesto (here) claimed that the previous (Conservative) government’s “investment in 5G [was] falling behind other countries and the rollout of gigabit broadband [had] been slow“, but they also made clear that the party would be making a “renewed push to fulfil the ambition of full gigabit and national 5G coverage by 2030.”
The SRN may be focused on delivering 4G, but the same infrastructure can also be used to support future 5G expansions and thus any cuts to the SRN rollout could risk contradicting the aforementioned ambition. On the flip side, the government does have a duty to ensure it gets as much value for public money as possible, and if mobile operators can do more of the work via private funding, then that will free up public investment for other areas of need.