Vodafone Join O2 and EE in Hitting First SRN Rural 4G UK Coverage Target UPDATE

Mobile network operator Vodafone has this afternoon followed both O2 (Virgin Media) and EE (BT) in announcing that they’ve “hit [the] Partial Not Spot (PNS) coverage target of the Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme“, which was achieved by expanding their 4G (mobile broadband) coverage to a total of 400 rural locations.

Just to recap. The SRN – supported by £501m of 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, which aims to extend geographic 4G coverage (aggregate) to 95% of the UK by the end of 2025 (or 84% when only considering the areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all providers).

The SRN includes several targets, but the first involves the delivery of industry funded coverage improvements for Partial Not-Spot (PNS) areas (i.e. areas that receive coverage from at least one operator, but not all), which needed to be achieved by June 2024. At this point, 4G (mobile broadband) must cover 88% of the UK’s landmass.

Rival operator EE (BT) became the first provider to report having achieved the PNS target in January 2024 (here), nearly half a year ahead of schedule. However, despite concerns about long delays (as recently expressed by both the National Audit Office (here) and Public Accounts Committee (here)), yesterday also saw O2 (Virgin Media) confirm that they’d been able to achieve the PNS target on time (here), and they’ve today been joined Vodafone.

Andrea Donà, Chief Network Officer at Vodafone UK, said:

“At Vodafone, we’ve always been vocal in our belief that a rural postcode should not be a barrier to connectivity. And, as The Nation’s Network, our mission is to make sure no part of the UK is left behind.

This is why we continue to invest millions in our rural network, so that customers living, working and visiting rural locations will benefit from a strong voice signal and fast data speeds. The SRN is a world-first partnership between Government and mobile operators, and this is a major milestone for Vodafone, achieved through teamwork, passion, creative delivery and determination, and I’m honoured to lead this incredible team.”

One catch here is that neither O2 nor Vodafone’s announcements included an up-to-date figure for current geographic 4G coverage, which is partly because achieving the 88% goal is still sometimes contingent upon all four of the primary network operators being able to deliver on their commitments (i.e. there’s a degree of infrastructure sharing involved, as well as new mast builds). But today’s news means that Three UK is the only laggard left.

The fact that O2 and Vodafone have been able to pull this off on time, without suffering from more significant delays, suggests that they’ve been able to ramp up their pace of deployment over the past few months. In addition, it’s possible that BT’s (EE) new mast sharing agreement with Vodafone and O2 may have also helped to play an 11th hour style role (here).

However, it’s ultimately Ofcom’s responsibility to take a view on whether the Phase One (PNS) licence obligations have actually been met or not. The regulator is due to run a progress assessment this summer and will then reach a conclusion by the early autumn, which should give us a much clearer idea of how much progress has been made (or not) and where the operators have fallen short.

We have asked Vodafone to clarify how much geographic 4G coverage they’re able to deliver and whether the recent deal with EE (BT) played a role in today’s development. We hope to report back soon.

UPDATE 2nd July 2024 @ 7am

Good news. Vodafone has confirmed that their geographic 4G coverage has indeed now reached the all-important 88% mark and, out of the 400 sites Vodafone itself delivered, they did not need any EE sites to reach their obligations.