'Finding 4G is like striking gold': MPs hit out over countryside coverage

Rural Britain is still battling dead zones and dropped calls, MPs have warned, despite official claims that mobile coverage is steadily improving.

During a Commons debate on connectivity, MPs accused Ofcom and mobile operators of failing to reflect the everyday reality of rural life, where card machines often lose signal, calls cut out and reliable 4G can be hard to find.

They said the gap between what statistics suggest and what residents experience is leaving countryside communities feeling ignored.

Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said one constituent had told her that “finding 4G is like striking gold”.

She said rural residents “have to put up with being gaslighted by the companies saying the signal is fine”, even though their daily experience suggests otherwise.

Morgan argued that only “robustly enforced financial penalties” would force operators to properly improve rural coverage.

Conservative MP John Lamont, who represents Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, warned unreliable connectivity was “deepening the divide between rural and urban Britain”.

He stressed that rural communities “do not seek special treatment, only fair treatment”.

Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations report highlights the scale of the disparity. Urban 5G site coverage has reached 48 per cent, while suburban areas stand at 38 per cent.

Rural coverage, however, has edged up only marginally, from 16 to 20 per cent, with just around 5 per cent of rural sites providing full standalone 5G.

MPs warned that poor signal is not just an inconvenience but a serious drag on local economies, affecting small businesses, tourism and even basic day-to-day transactions.

In some villages, they said, pubs and shops are still unable to rely on card payments because connections drop without warning.

Landowners and rural groups argue the problem is rooted not only in geography but also in policy.

Reforms to the Electronic Communications Code in 2017 changed how operators pay to host mobile infrastructure, shifting to a “no-scheme valuation” model.

In many cases, this reduced rents by up to 90 per cent and allowed long-standing agreements to be reopened.

The changes were intended to speed up rollout by lowering operators’ costs, but they have coincided with a sharp rise in disputes and litigation, cooling relations between operators and site providers.

A recent UK-wide survey of 500 landowners found around one in three are now considering walking away from hosting infrastructure if the regime is extended further.

Despite this, the government has confirmed it intends to expand the framework to another 15,000 sites in April under Part 2 of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act.

Bill Clarke, a former farmer from Cornwall, said: “I’m incredibly disappointed that the government has decided to expand a destructive policy that has already caused real harm for landowners like me.”

He explained that in 1997, while running a dairy farm and milk processing business, he agreed to host a telecoms mast because connectivity was essential for trading with supermarkets.

“The rent was £4,800 a year, with clear protections and an agreement it would rise as demand grew,” he said.

But under the new system, he said the offer was cut to £1,500, leaving him with little choice but to accept a much lower rent or face a legal fight he could not afford.

“What makes it worse is the lack of any proper framework for landowners to challenge how we are treated,” he added, warning that many are “losing faith in the system altogether”.

Industry and rural groups say ministers are pressing ahead despite mounting evidence of strained relationships and continued weak rural coverage.

They argue the government is relying too heavily on operator-reported data while leaving residents and landowners with no formal route to challenge poor practice.

Campaigners are urging ministers to bring Section 70 into force before any further expansion. The measure would create a statutory complaints mechanism, allowing concerns to be raised directly with Ofcom.

Without it, they warn Britain risks entrenching a two-tier mobile network — where progress is recorded on paper, but rural communities remain stuck searching for a signal that works in practice.