Jan 11th, 2014

Author: marionmccune

Mobile Coverage in Scotland

The mobile phone coverage in Scotland really really sucks.  When we moved house I had to move from my old provider – 3 to Vodafone because there is literally no 3 coverage within about 20 miles of the house.  In fact to actually get my PAC code to move my number we had to drive to Dunoon (nearly 40 miles round trip) to be able to receive an SMS message.  So it was Vodafone or nothing, because they have a load of 2G masts which means that in theory at least we can make phone calls when we are at home.

In practice however the situation seems to be that outside the major cities they basically have 2G only.  I’ve just travelled by train from Dumfries (South Scotland) to Glasgow and the most signal I have had the whole way is Edge.  This was really annoying because I have my shiny new Lumia 1020 and my super fast Surface Pro 2, but without connectivity they are of limited use and basically I couldn’t do the piece of work I had planned.

So practically speaking I have the choice of 3 – where I was very satisfied with the service but don’t have any coverage at home, or Vodafone where I am not impressed at all, but I can at least make calls.  This is not a good choice and I think it is something the Scottish Government really need to address.  I don’t see how they are expecting to attract businesses into the country (particularly the Highland and Islands) when not only is the broadband inadequate, but you can’t even fall back on the 3G network because it is non-existent…..

If there was one single thing which would win my vote at the next election it would be sorting out this data access problem for once and for all.  Rant over because I knew all this before I moved to the country – but it really is annoying.  Are you listening Mr Salmond?