SUCCESSIVE UK governments have “made a mess” of providing decent mobile phone services in rural areas in Scotland.
Speaking as controversy grows over the Shared Rural Network (SRN), the SNP’s former Westminster digital spokesperson Calum Kerr said the UK has pursued policies that have widened the digital divide between rural and urban regions.
He told the Sunday National that a lack of technological expertise at Westminster had contributed to weak policymaking, with a focus on revenue over rural connectivity.
“Where other countries mandated high levels of coverage, including ‘Rural First’ initiatives that required operators to prioritise remote areas before urban ones, the UK has pursued policies that have widened the digital divide between rural and urban regions over time,” said Kerr, who is hoping to replace Christine Grahame as an SNP MSP.
“Successive UK governments have failed our rural areas in terms of mobile connectivity. Whether through wilful neglect, ignorance of the potential, prioritising revenue for HM Treasury, or a combination of all these factors, they neglected to auction mobile spectrum licences with guarantees of rural coverage.”
He added: “In a classic case of last-minute Tory electioneering in 2019, they decided to try and throw some money at the problem they created, with grand promises on mobile connectivity.”
A few years later, their Shared Rural Network initiative is mired in controversy and has sparked anger in Scotland with campaigners claiming millions of pounds are being wasted building masts in Scotland’s designated Wild Land which will scar the countryside but do nothing to improve rural connectivity.
A total of 46 highly regarded organisations in Scotland, including the RSPB and the John Muir Trust, have called on the new Labour Government to pause and review the programme to provide coverage in uninhabited areas identified as “4G Total Not Spots”.
They say the money would be better spent providing a better service to rural areas where people are actually living and working, rather than marring beauty spots with masts and generators.
“The UK Government has been making a mess of it and the very fact they are having to spend millions of pounds now is because of their initial decisions,” said Kerr.
The former Tory Government set a goal of delivering 4G coverage over 95% of land mass rather than to most of the population.
Having plumped for geographical coverage, the Government then could have saved millions of pounds by telling the mobile operators they would have to agree to fund this in order to win their licences.
However, this might have resulted in mobile operators bidding less for their licences, impacting the income to the Treasury.
“That is why the Government did it, but to me that was wrong,” said Kerr. “The Government should have put in the appropriate coverage models at the point of auctioning the licences.”
Campaigners argue licence conditions should be about ensuring good coverage for every citizen, not maximising the windfall for the Treasury.
The UK Government is now spending £300m of public money on the Shared Rural Network, building 260 mobile phone masts in the Scottish Highlands in areas identified as 4G Total Not Spots (TNS).
The TNS target is 95% coverage of the UK by area “from at least one operator” but this means there may be only a one in four chance that users will have a signal. Kerr said he had pushed for mobile infrastructure sharing.
“There is a hill I pass driving to Glasgow that has five masts on it which is ridiculous,” he said. “Every mobile operator is doing their own thing. I was advocating for shared infrastructure and legislating to force that because it is bad enough having one mast in a rural area, let alone five.”
Campaigners claim the masts that are planned for 4G Total Not Spots are worse than useless as they will scar the countryside where there already is voice and 999 coverage through 2G.
However, 2G is due to be switched off by 2030 even though 2G coverage is currently better than 4G in many rural areas, as the latter requires more masts per square km.
Campaigner Dave Craig said he suspected the real reason for the TNS programme was not to bring better coverage to the Highlands but to allow 2G to be switched off in the UK, freeing up the radio spectrum so that 5G and 6G could be marketed to the paying customers in the cities.
“Highland scenery is trashed to allow big bucks to be made in the cities, but no-one dares to say this out loud,” he said. “They just pretend it is all about helping the Highlands.
“TNS masts never were about improving services to disadvantaged Highlanders, it was to allow 2G to be withdrawn without degrading coverage.”
He added: “There is no technical reason that prevents 2G being retained in Wild Land from existing masts while reallocating its spectrum elsewhere.
“The latest smartphones are, in any case, introducing satellite-enabled emergency calls with 100% outdoor coverage. The £300 million plus SRN TNS budget should be repurposed now to provide transformational improvements in indoor connectivity to homes and business in the Highlands.”
A UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology spokesperson said: “We continue to work with our partners to ensure that the Shared Rural Network in Scotland strikes the right balance between delivering the benefits that come from improved connectivity while also minimising the impact on the local environment and providing value for money.
“Local planning authorities are responsible for approving applications which form part of the programme. Mobile network operators continue to work closely with them and local communities to ensure new masts, which will facilitate 999 calls for the first time, go through the proper planning process.”
