Phone mast upgrade has made no difference - MP

Helen Morgan questioned how "stretching" the coverage roll out was

An upgrade to mobile phone coverage on the Shropshire Hills has been welcomed although concerns remain about just how good the improvements are, an MP has said.

North Shropshire's Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, who has campaigned for better rural mobile coverage, said she had not noticed "any discernible improvement" from the recent Shared Rural Network (SRN) rollout.

Nine masts in England have been upgraded to provide 4G coverage on all networks, including in parts of Shropshire.

"Obviously any improvement is really welcome, but I think the Shared Rural Network of which this rollout is a part hasn't really delivered what it was promised to deliver," Morgan said.

The rollout has been led by the government and phone networks with masts that initially only used to connect EE customers and those calling 999 being upgraded to provide coverage for all mobile network operators.

Morgan said the industry had spent £500m improving signals in places where people could get a signal from one provider but not from others.

"But I have to say my experience in North Shropshire is that we can't notice any discernible improvement at all and I'm really concerned that the targets that have been set for that rollout weren't stretching enough and haven't really delivered the improvements that we need to see," she said.

"Certainly in north Shropshire and I would imagine and, although I spend less time there, it's the same in south Shropshire as well."

She said she accepted there were planning issues around more masts being installed in the countryside but also criticised the coverage maps that were used to set targets for being inaccurate.

"So, I think there's a bigger risk that they think everything is rosy," she added.

"The capacity on those masts isn't good enough for people to connect when they're out and about."

As chair of an all-party group on digital connectivity, she said the group would be reporting to the government the issues that they were still finding.

"The government have listened, I think, to the point about coverage maps, and we're expecting to see coverage maps out soon," she said, adding that she was, however, not hopeful about how much better they would be.