The Mobile UK trade body, which represents Three UK, EE (BT), O2 (VMO2) and Vodafone, has published a new report that highlights how mobile connectivity can help councils overcome the challenges of delivering adult social care. But it’s also pushing for rates relief and easier planning approvals on new masts etc.
At present, all of the major mobile operators are busy investing billions of pounds to deploy ultrafast 5G based mobile broadband networks across the country (EE and Three UK have already gone beyond 50% UK population coverage). Furthermore, the £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project is also aiming to extend UK geographic 4G mobile coverage to 95% by the end of 2025.
However, it’s fair to say that mobile operators often run into a fair bit of local opposition, such as when trying to build a new mast or upgrade existing infrastructure. As such, it’s no surprise to find that today’s new ‘Connected Care‘ report, which attempts to highlight the challenges councils face in delivering social care and how mobile connectivity can help, ultimately ends up making recommendations aimed at boosting the wider rollout of related infrastructure.
Report Recommendations to UK Councils:
➤ Put infrastructure at the heart of all Local Development Plans to reference the importance of mobile infrastructure to economic development and social inclusion.
➤ Appoint a Digital Champion, who can focus squarely on delivering connectivity and digital adoption, but also sell the benefits and opportunities of digital investment. Research suggests that councils that have appointed Digital Champions have had significant success in speeding up rollout and improving relationships with telecommunication companies. Mobile UK’s own research has found that planning approval rates also tend to be higher where councils have put in place Digital Champions or schemes to promote mobile connectivity.
➤ Continue promotion of full-fibre deployment to facilitate mobile and 5G rollout.
➤ Support with the transition to adopting digital applications in adult and social care.
➤ All public bodies, not just local authorities, to make available their assets for locating mobile apparatus on Electronic Communication Code Terms.
➤ Introduction of business rates relief for new mobile infrastructure development, especially in harder-to-reach areas.
As for the social care aspects of the report, it’s all summarized at a very high level and with plenty of generalizations and optimistic predictions, which may or may not reflect the reality of improving mobile connectivity in such settings. But you don’t always strictly need 5G to do a lot of the things that the report talks about (eg remote consultation / diagnosis).
However, the final recommendations do suggest that this is really just another way of trying to soften the stance that some local authorities take towards the deployment of new mobile infrastructure, where planning authorities can be quite obstructive – sometimes this is justified, but other times it isn’t
Hamish MacLeod, CEO of Mobile UK, said:
“With the pressure on councils more pronounced than ever and social care one of the biggest challenges they face it is important that the role of digital connectivity and the opportunities it offers are better understood.
Our report highlights many of these opportunities both to the council and those in need, calling for mobile connectivity to be more heavily integrated into council policy and planning.”
Local authorities will no doubt find some interesting ideas in the new report, although we suspect it will take more than this to change the minds of some councils.