Mobile blackspots ‘set to disappear’

Nearly half of people living in Britain have problems making and receiving mobile calls at home, according to a survey by a network testing company.

Global Wireless Solutions polled 2,000 mobile-phone users and found 40% had blackspots at home, with most problems reported in Liverpool and Cardiff.

However telecoms analyst Matthew Howett says the situation is going to improve.

He told the BBC: “This should get better as operators are using different frequencies to provide coverage.”

He added: “I don’t think the results of the survey are hugely surprising as it is the sort of common problem most of us have experience of – whether at home or increasingly in the office.

“But EE and Three offer something which lets you use your own existing broadband connection and equipment to make and receive calls and text messages although it might not currently work with every device.

“For a long time, Vodafone and others have offered a product called a ‘signal booster’ which is a piece of hardware you connect to your home broadband to make the above possible and that would support a wider range of devices.

“The advantage of the new solution from EE and Three is that you don’t need that bit of kit.”

The survey revealed that the most likely blackspot in people’s homes was in the kitchen and that Georgian houses or those built in the 2000s are the hardest in which to get a signal.

Sixty per cent of respondents in Liverpool reported having problems making and receiving calls on their mobiles at home with 54% of people in Cardiff and 53% in Bristol also suffering.

Paul Carter, chief executive officer of GWS, said: “The UK is no longer a fixed-line nation. When we’re at home, we don’t just receive calls on our mobiles, we make them too. The best phone is the one you’ve got on you – not the one sitting in its dock out in the hallway.”

However, the frustrations could soon be at an end, according to Mr Howett.

O2 has committed to a regulatory requirement of providing indoor 4G coverage to 98% of the population by 2017 and he added: “I would be surprised if this problem lasts beyond then.”