Author: Steve Smith, Principal Consultant at FarrPoint
It’s true that less populated areas such as remote hillsides, coastal edges, or nestled away villages can often still suffer from poor coverage. But increasingly, towns and cities are experiencing their own mobile connectivity challenges. Urban not-spots in many ways are more difficult to detect and solve than their rural counterparts.
In urban environments, mobile coverage isn't just about distance from the nearest mast. The ever-changing built landscape plays a major role. High-rise buildings can block the line of sight between users and network infrastructure. Steel and glass facades, underground levels, and energy-efficient construction materials can weaken or completely block mobile signals. So even in the heart of a city, surrounded by infrastructure, it’s not uncommon to find poor or inconsistent service. And just because an area previously had good service, that doesn’t mean it will remain that way as new buildings emerge or others are demolished, changing how the networks perform.
There is also a growing problem of building and land owners requesting existing infrastructure be removed under ‘Notice to Quits’, which combined with a potential lack of suitable alternatives available to replace them, means that coverage could get worse.
Cities bring together thousands of mobile users in tight spaces, on streets, in shopping centres, at transport hubs and stadiums. These high-density environments can test network capacity to its limits. A technically ‘covered’ area can still function like a not-spot when the local infrastructure is simply overloaded. Addressing these issues requires more than just adding additional cell sites. Of course, demand isn’t always constant; rush hours, holiday periods or specific events can mean even well-designed infrastructure can become overwhelmed outside its normal usage pattern.
It often involves finding a suitable alternative for a rooftop site that is planned for removal, small cells, or indoor coverage solutions tailored to specific buildings or areas, such as distributed antenna systems (DAS). These aren’t broad-brush fixes; they are precision tools, each designed to address a specific type of issue.
Unlike rural deployments, which often focus on extending coverage over large areas, urban infill requires close collaboration with multiple stakeholders: operators, planners, landlords, property teams and even street lighting departments to be successful.
A good example of this in practice is the work we did for Cheshire West and Chester Council. Despite being a busy and well-connected urban area, parts of Chester’s historic city centre, particularly within the city walls, suffered from patchy mobile coverage due to the nature of the built environment (no flat roofs or suitable street furniture) and planning restrictions linked to its conservation status. Using detailed mobile mapping and analysis, we identified specific gaps in 4G and 5G coverage across all major networks. This led to a targeted plan that not only highlighted the problems but also allowed interventions to be considered that worked within the constraints of a heritage setting. As a result, Chester is now actively progressing with infrastructure improvements in collaboration with network providers, demonstrating how urban infill can be achieved even in seemingly challenging city environments.
As cities evolve and digital services become increasingly embedded in how we live, work and move, reliable mobile connectivity is increasingly a foundational service. Yet, without proactive attention to urban mobile infill, gaps in provision will persist in exactly the places we rely on connectivity most, as changes to urban environments go unnoticed by network operators, leaving those reliant on mobile connectivity struggling.
Urban not-spots are not about failure, but more about ignoring the dynamic nature of urban environments. They reflect the complexity of modern urban life and the need for mobile infrastructure to be planned, delivered and monitored over the long term with that complexity in mind. At FarrPoint, we help local authorities unlock the potential of their urban environments to support improved mobile connectivity.
Download our insightful one-pager on Improving Urban Mobile Connectivity, featuring relevant case studies and an overview of FarrPoint’s expertise.
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