National park phone mast to cut 'digital divide'

A new phone mast has been switched on in the North York Moors National Park - an area notorious for bad mobile phone connectivity.

The mast is being used by four different providers and means more people and businesses in areas including Helmsley and Harome will be able to access the 4G network.

The government-funded mast upgrades have now been activated as part of the Shared Rural Network (SRN).

It is situated about three miles north of Helmsley and it is claimed it will reduce the "digital divide" between urban and rural communities.

Since the Shared Rural Network programme began in 2020, an additional 21,000 square miles (34,000km) have received coverage from all four operators, EE, Three, VMO2 and Vodafone.

Ben Roome, CEO of Digital Mobile Spectrum Limited - a joint venture of the UK mobile network operators - said four years ago only 41% of national parks had mobile coverage.

"Now, we're in the process of really lifting that up, with the North York Moors Authority really keen that all the premises on the North York Moors have mobile coverage, and the roads are covered," he said.

Mr Roome said good 4G coverage in an area of "not many other people" should give users an experience that is "as good - if not better" than 5G in busy city centre locations.

He said there were objections to installing infrastructure in national parks but sharing sites meant fewer masts.

"It means less power, it means less disruption and better value for money from the public purse.

"When you're putting all the operators onto one site as well, you're impacting the environment less," he added.

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