UK Indoor mobile reception still a bit rubbish – uSwitch.com

Price comparison site uSwitch surveyed around 2,000 UK mobile users to ask about their mobile phone experiences.

The headline stat is that 29% of them said they have poor or no indoor reception at home. As you can see from the first table below this phenomenon is worst in the country and best in the suburbs. It’s also worth noting that every type of location said their reception is less rubbish than it was a year ago.

Ernest Doku, of uSwitch said a bunch of stuff. “When it comes to indoor mobile coverage, we’ve seen a slight improvement over the last year,” he said. “This is good news for the areas that have noticed a significantly lower incidence of intermittent or poor mobile reception in their own homes – notably mobile users in inner cities and suburban neighborhoods – but it’ll be of little consequence to those that are still suffering.

“The urban vs rural disparity is especially concerning. Mobile users living in the countryside are left feeling failed by providers that are yet to effectively extend their coverage outside of built-up areas. This discrepancy is starkly illustrated by this research which has seen negligible improvements made to indoor mobile service in rural areas over the last year. Whilst progress should be applauded and this prioritised focus on more densely populated areas is great for many consumers, it is of little consolation for those still living in mobile not-spots.”

There was lots more but that was mostly the inevitable calls for people to shop around. Isn’t it funny how often research commissioned by price comparison sites concludes that people need to compare prices? But having an ulterior motive doesn’t necessarily discredit the data. The next table below shows there’s not a lot of difference in indoor reception between the big UK operators. Then there’s a somewhat confusing one that seems to imply over half of people experience moody calls at home 19% of the time.