Mobile Networks: Resilience

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts
Tuesday 11th December 2018

(5 years, 4 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Ashton of Hyde Portrait Lord Ashton of Hyde
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As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, alluded to, by 2020 the universal service obligation will give every household in this country a legal right to be connected at a speed of not less than 10 megabits a second.

Lord Harris of Haringey Portrait Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
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My Lords, when the Minister and his colleagues consider the resilience of the mobile phone network—I refer to my interests in the register on this matter—could he ensure that resilience for all providers is covered in respect of electricity power outages and their impact on mobile phone aerials? Most of those have a battery life of only two hours if the electric power is off.

Lord Ashton of Hyde Portrait Lord Ashton of Hyde
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Yes, power outages, pandemics and flood are some of the issues that the ECRRG, the group which I mentioned, has considered. It has improved the organisation for that in recent months.