UK businees at risk of losing a quarter of their workforce due to signal black spots

London, UK, 17 May 2017 As today's workforces become increasingly reliant on their mobile devices, a quarter (25%) of British office workers say they would consider moving jobs (or have already moved) due to a lack of mobile coverage in their building. That's according to new research from leading UK communications infrastructure company Arqiva, which highlights the worrying extent of the UK's struggle for adequate indoor mobile coverage and its potential impact to businesses in the future.

The survey, conducted among 1,000 UK office workers, revealed that as many as 1 in 2 (49%) respondents have experienced poor mobile coverage (i.e. dropped calls or a lack of signal) within their office building. Of those, almost three quarters (72%) say this is an occurrence that happens every week, and a quarter (25%) say it is something they face daily.

John Lillistone, Head of Products for Telecoms at Arqiva, said:

With 43% of those we asked saying that poor mobile coverage does or would significantly impact their ability to do their job, and a quarter (26%) claiming it already causes them extreme levels of stress and frustration, indoor coverage is clearly not an issue that companies can afford to ignore.

Looking to the future, younger mobile first' workers appear particularly intolerant of the growing problem amongst generations X and Y the willingness to leave their job over poor coverage rose to over a third (35%).

With the strength of mobile signal impacted by a variety of different factors, responsibility can be hard to assign. When respondents were asked who they think is accountable for mobile coverage issues, the vast majority (90%) cited their mobile network, however responsibility was also distributed amongst a number of other parties including the device itself (70%), the IT manager (42%) and the building designer (41%). In the line-up of potential suspects, a few even picked out the weather, the government and their local council.

Lillistone continued:

In actual fact, it is usually the building itself that's the root cause of poor indoor mobile coverage you'd be surprised by the extent to which modern building materials, such as insulation and double glazing, can hamper signal.

Given all this, it is little wonder there is so much confusion among users indoor mobile coverage is a complicated issue which no one party can solve on its own. Networks, architects, builders and employers all have a part to play and as the UK battles to become a leader of the 5G connected world, it is vital for them all to work together to understand their role in finding a solution for current indoor coverage woes.

-- ENDS --

Research Methodology

Vanson Bourne, the research firm that conducted the survey, interviewed 1,000 office-based workers, aged 18+, in the UK. Fieldwork was conducted in March-April 2017.

About Arqiva:

Arqiva is a leading UK communications infrastructure and media services provider dedicated to connecting people wherever they are through the delivery of TV, radio, mobile and the Internet of Things (IoT). We are an independent provider of telecom towers, with circa 8,000 active sites across Great Britain, and are also the only supplier of national terrestrial television and radio broadcasting services in the UK. Our advanced networks support the exponential growth of connected devices and the ever-increasing demand for data from smartphones to tablets, connected TVs, smart meters, cars and medical devices.

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distributed antenna system

in-building

mobile

mobile coverage

research study

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