Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
New mobile site set to go live
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Patchy phone signal in Canterbury looks set to improve after a mobile network revealed a new site to boost 4G coverage will go live within weeks.
Last summer, figures from Ofcom revealed one in three properties in the district do not receive a reliable signal from any one of the UK’S ‘big four’ providers - Vodafone, EE, O2 and Three.
This prompted city councillor Ben Fitter-harding to call on networks to recognise the city as
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(Triple glazed packages also available) a “special case” and find a way of improving their 4G coverage. Now, the commonplace sight of people walking the city’s streets with phones held desperately aloft could soon be a thing of the past, as his efforts have proven successful. Mobile company Vodafone and its partner O2 have revealed a new site will offer 4G to customers using their networks.
4G is the fourth generation of mobile phone technology, allowing those with compatible mobiles, tablets and laptops to surf the web faster than when using previous generations. Cllr Fitter-harding said: “I’ve been lobbying hard for some time now for the networks to improve coverage in Canterbury, and Canterbury City Council has been doing the same.
“Vodafone have been very helpful in identifying the problems and pushing ahead with solutions. Vodafone’s network in Canterbury is actually managed by O2, and the improvements will benefit Vodafone and O2 customers as well as all of their virtual network subscribers like Tesco Mobile.” However, there remains work to be done, as major providers BT and Three are “yet to engage in any meaningful way”. Cllr Fitter-harding says the city council continues to push for improvement, and hopes to eventually roll out Wi-fi across the city centre.
“This is in progress at the moment but I don’t have an ETA right now,” he said.
“The aim is to provide free Wi-fi access in the city so that residents, businesses and visitors can stay connected, and it is expected that this will bring economic benefits as people make better use of way-finding and other apps to enjoy their time here.”
A spokesman for Vodafone
UK commented: “We have been working with our network sharing partner, O2, to improve our mobile coverage in Canterbury city centre.
“As a result, a site is planned to go live within a few weeks which will offer Vodafone 4G. “This means our customers will experience a quicker and more reliable service in the area. “We continue to look to further improve our coverage in Canterbury, across Kent, and the UK to ensure our customers can depend on our network wherever they go.”
Three and EE were approached for a comment.