£500k agreed to create Oxfordshire 'digital twin'

The "mobile digital twin" would help find ways to boost phone signal in Oxfordshire

A "digital twin" of Oxfordshire's mobile phone network is set to be created, with the hope of boosting signal in the county.

Oxfordshire County Council has agreed to invest £500,000 into the project.

It will allow the authority to run "what if scenarios" on the model, to see how the network could be improved.

The council says the project is needed because poor mobile coverage is "increasingly becoming a barrier for business and residents".

Craig Bower is the council's digital connectivity programme director - he said the authority's scheme would be pioneering.

"Other authority's use drive-by data to capture where they know there are problems, but it then just stops there - so you know you have a problem but it doesn't give you any idea as to what you might be able to do about it," he said.

"The idea of a digital twin, is you have a number of tools that you can use to do a what if scenario."

He said questions could be put into the digital twin model, where signal is found to be poor.

He explained: "What happens if you were to add capacity to that network?

"What happens if you were to orientate the antennae to a slightly different direction, increase the gain on that antennae or install one or two small cells to increase that coverage - what impact might that have?"

The council said even if no solution was viable, it would still give an understanding of which mobile network provides the best coverage for a given location.

The authority hopes other councils will invest in the scheme for their own areas, which would reduce the £500,000 initial cost of the project.