40% suffer phone signal woes

MORE than two in every five people living in remote country areas have mobile phone signal problems at home, research by the Commission for Communications Regulation has found.

And across all areas – including well populated cities – the figure is as high as 29%, the alarming study found.

However, many people with coverage problems find switching provider can improve the service. ‘This is particularly the case in rural areas,’ ComReg said.

The main problems are quality of service ‘deteriorating when indoors’, a deterioration in the quality of reception during a call, the inability to make calls and calls being dropped, the ComReg survey found, with the number of frustrated customers rising to 43% in rural areas.

ComReg chairman Gerry Fahy said mobile phones were now the device of choice even at home so reliance on coverage has increased significantly.

Respondents living in urban areas were more likely to report satisfaction (82%) than those living in rural areas (62%). The survey involved over 2,800 face-to-face surveys.

Worryingly, 51% of those with service issues in their home experience them on a daily basis. Almost one in eight, 12%, said they would be willing to pay extra for a reliable service, compared to 71% who said they were not. The survey also showed that 83% of us have a smartphone; 98% of those are between the ages of 16 and 24, and 49% are over 65 years old.

We are slow to change operator but Mr Fahy said we should keep an eye on the market and switch to better services. ComReg said it is in the process of developing a ‘coverage tool’ to help users understand where they should expect to get coverage, depending on their provider and other factors.

It will publish, in the coming weeks, a report on ‘repeaters’, which can help enhance phone signals indoors but which are currently not permitted for use in Ireland.