The sample map
I have blogged before about my ‘issues’ with regards to 3G coverage in the UK. The phone companies would all like our business so all claim to provide good coverage for smartphone users. My personal experience suggests that no one carrier is massively different to another – all of them are sadly lacking, particularly in the more rural parts of the UK.
The BBC have recently carried out an extremely interesting experiment to show what 3G coverage really is like across the country. They commissioned an app for Android phones that once installed provided information back to a central database of signal strength across the UK. The results are now in and available on an interactive map, and certainly to me look pretty accurate! If I check my home and my mother’s home postcodes the signal strength reported certainly reflects my experiences. It is reported that those testers able to receive a data connection only got a 3G signal 75% of the time.
More importantly it is generally less coverage than is shown on the networks own maps! Have a look for yourself, the link below takes you to the relevant webpage into which you can enter your postcodes – you may be surprised by what you find.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14582499
About the map;
1. 42 million locations have been recorded
2. White space represents areas where no tests were conducted
3. Each tile represents a maximum area of approximately 200m x 200m
4. A green tile means that handsets spent most of their time on 3G in that area
5. A purple tile means handsets spent most of their time on 2G
As usual the network operators are staying quiet, isn’t it about time that they came clean and admitted that their coverage is nowhere as good as it should be?
