Vodafone Names 30 More Villages Set To Get Mobile Coverage Boost

Vodafone has announced the third and final wave of rural communities to benefit from better mobile coverage as part of the Rural Open Sure Signal Programme.

The initiative was launched in July last year and invited villages across the UK to apply as a candidate, with 100 receiving the operator’s Sure Signal femtocell technology, which uses fixed line networks to boost 3G signal over a short radius.

Vodafone Sure Signal

The first two tranches were revealed in November and the latest group includes communities in Northern Ireland, the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Wales and the South West of England.

Now that all the communities have been revealed, Vodafone will work with each village’s ‘champion’ on the rollout.

Vodafone has pledged to invest £1 billion in its UK network over a 12 month period and promises to cover 98 percent of the UK with 2G, 3G or 4G connectivity. It, along with the other three major operators, has committed to spending a combined £5 billion on boosting coverage as part of a compromise to the government, which had wanted to force through a ‘national roaming’ network.

• The 30 latest communities
  • Argyll & Bute: Ardfern, Connel, Dunbeg, Ormsary, Port Askaig
  • Borders: Heriot
  • Caithness, Dunbeath
  • Cornwall: Trevose
  • Co Tyrone: Donemana
  • Cumbria: Gilcrux, Mungrisdale, Uldale
  • Denbighshire: Loggerheads
  • Fife: Ceres
  • Hampshire: Silchester
  • Invernes-shire: Morvern, Newtonmore, Spean Bridge
  • Outer Hebrides: Benbecula & Balivanich, Lochboisdale, Lochmaddy
  • Ross-shire: Applecross, Cromarty, Culbokie
  • Selkirkshire: Ettrick
  • Shetlands: Aith, Baltasound, Fetlar, Sandness, Skeld Sandsting
  • Suffolk: Benacre
  • Warwickshire: Lighthorne
  • Wigtownshire: Isle of Whithorn, Whithorn
  • Yorkshire: Bradfield, Buckden, Markington, Melmerby, Scorton

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