Mobile phone blackspots in home huge problem for 2 in 5 – Liverpool and Cardiff the worst
- Kitchens most liable to be mobile dead-zones and therefore best for quiet family dinners
- Liverpool and Cardiff worst UK cities for blackspots in homes
- Brits living in Georgian homes and homes built in the Noughties most likely to feel blackspots are marring their indoor mobile experiences
If, like me, you spend half your time standing by a window (or even waving the phone out of the window) to make/receive a mobile phone call you probably won’t be surprised to hear that two in five of us have a mobile phone blackspot in our homes.
According to Global Wireless Solutions’ study of 2,000 UK adults, 40 per cent of Brits have parts of the house where they can’t make or receive a call while almost one in three (32%) told pollsters they ‘regularly’ have issues making and receiving mobile calls from home. The proportion of respondents that reported regularly experiencing mobile internet connectivity issues at home was also 30%.
The GWS survey suggests that homes built in the Georgian period are more likely to have mobile blackspots than homes from any other period of ‘modern’ British history, and that Liverpool and Cardiff are the UK cities with the most home blackspot-afflicted residents.
Importantly, 1 in 4 of the UK adults polled by GWS for its survey said that mobile data connectivity issues had ‘definitely contributed’ to their decision to switch operators in the past – while more than 1 in 7 respondents said that voice calling blackspots had determined their decision to ditch and switch their mobile service provider.
Apparently, according to survey, the kitchen is the worst place to use your mobile phone. Two in three of the blackspot-afflicted respondents who took part in GWS’ nationwide poll said that they had a mobile calling and/or data problem in their kitchen. Voice reliability was at its worst in the kitchen – roughly 95% (with EE’s voice network proving less than 90% reliable). In addition, more calls failed to initialise in the kitchen than in any of the other room ‘types’.
In addition, GWS’ tests also found that the kitchen had both the lowest operator 4G penetration (only 74%, on average) and was the worst room for packet data reliability, suggesting that parents interested in spending some quality time with their kids should insist on holding family meals in their kitchens!
Says Paul Carter, CEO of GWS: “The UK is no longer a ‘fixed line’ nation. When we’re at home we don’t just receive calls on our mobiles – we make them too. The best phone is the one you’ve got on you – not the one sitting in its dock out in the hallway. But that presents a problem for operators – many of whom are clearly struggling with the brave new world of ‘in-home mobility’.”
| City | % of respondents reporting mobile blackspots | |
| 1 | Liverpool | 60% |
| 2 | Cardiff | 54% |
| 3 | Bristol | 53% |
| 4 | Norwich | 48% |
| 5 | Glasgow | 46% |
| 6 | Leicester | 46% |
| = | Birmingham | 46% |
| 8 | Coventry | 44% |
| 9 | Edinburgh | 44% |
| 10 | Manchester | 43% |
