Written by Nick Wood for Telecoms.com
UK operator Vodafone is looking to the heavens for a solution to rural mobile coverage.
It revealed on Thursday that it has partnered with the Church of England and coverage solutions specialist Net CS to deploy Open RAN 4G signal boosters in 11 church bell towers across the country. Each one has a range of up to 500 metres, enough to cover the surrounding area.
The Blessed Virgin Mary in Brompton Regis, Somerset, and St Michael’s and All Angels in Ewyas Harold, Herefordshire have gone live already. The remaining nine are due to come online over the coming months.
Mobile operators sometimes struggle to secure planning permission for new sites in some of the more picturesque, rural parts of the country, often because the local community considers them a blot on the landscape – while simultaneously complaining that mobile coverage is rubbish.
So when it comes to the matter of installing equipment on hallowed village churches of all places, it is one that has to be handled delicately, to say the least.
Voda is keen to emphasise that the signal boosters it’s using are small, well-hidden boxes that won’t spoil the look of these treasured buildings.
“Churches are typically very tall, on high ground, and close to the community we’re trying to connect. This makes them the perfect place to install a mobile site, and now we’ve developed technology that’s small enough not to spoil the appearance of the church,” said Andrea Dona, network and development director at Vodafone UK, in a statement. “Our aim is to use this cutting-edge technology to improve mobile coverage in as many rural locations as possible. This is an important step in ensuring rural communities can enjoy all the benefits of mobile connectivity.”
While there is no mention of site rental fees in the release, Vodafone is likely to be paying something to these churches to host its equipment, which should contribute to their upkeep, which, given their age and the materials used, is probably not cheap.
