{"id":68902,"date":"2016-03-23T08:49:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T08:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=5b0ccc925752b80e4797253b7da056c5"},"modified":"2016-03-23T08:49:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T08:49:06","slug":"press-release-alun-cairns-hosts-mobile-phone-operators-summit-with-plea-lets-get-wales-talking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=68902","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Alun Cairns hosts mobile phone operators summit with plea \u2013 let\u2019s get Wales talking!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The new Secretary of State for Wales is today (Wednesday March 23) meeting the UK\u2019s major mobile phone operators in a bid to tackle patchy phone reception in rural areas.<\/p>\n<p>Alun Cairns has also called on the Welsh Government to consider new powers \u2013 announced in the Budget \u2013 which will allow the construction of taller masts in England to boost coverage in difficult-to-reach spots.<\/p>\n<p>Those attending the meeting at the Wales Office include executives from MobileUK; Three; O2; EE and Vodafone.<\/p>\n<p>The agenda will cover mobile phone coverage in rural areas and how to tackle the prevalence of \u201cnot spots\u201d \u2013 areas with absolutely no reception \u2013 in parts of Wales, particularly the north.<\/p>\n<p>While mobile operators are continuing to roll out their networks in Wales, there are still an estimated 4 per cent of households\/businesses in Wales which can\u2019t get voice coverage from any of the major operators. This is twice the UK rate..<\/p>\n<p>Mr Cairns said he was keen to see the Welsh Government emulate measures announced in the Budget which allow the construction of phone masts up to 25 metres tall \u2013 10 metres more than currently allowed \u2013 without planning permission across England.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"the-secretary-of-state-for-wales-said\">The Secretary of State for Wales said:<\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p>While I appreciate the success of progress so far and scale of challenge around improving mobile connections in Wales, there remain areas in rural parts of Wales that have no network coverage.<\/p>\n<p>The UK Government used the Budget to announce greater freedoms and flexibilities for the deployment of mobile infrastructure \u2013 I\u2019d like to see the Welsh Government consider something similar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">It is absolutely right that communities are consulted about the impact of masts. But if we want better coverage in hard-to-access areas then we need to encourage the operators to invest in their networks for better voice and data services.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The mobile phone summit will also look at a trial collaboration in the Scottish Highlands between EE and Facebook which will provide 4G connection to villages, and will ask whether similar innovative technologies could be deployed in Wales.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new Secretary of State for Wales is meeting the mobile phone operators to tackle patchy phone reception in rural areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68902"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}