Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the answer of 24 March 2026 to question 121001, whether her Department has considered the use of independent, real-terms data when mapping mobile coverage.

Ofcom is responsible for reporting on the availability of telecommunications networks across the UK.

Government has restated the importance of Ofcom continuing to improve its reporting of mobile coverage in the draft Statement of Strategic Priorities for telecommunications, the management of spectrum and postal services. This includes building on the launch of Map Your Mobile tool in June 2025, by exploring more use of measured and crowdsourced data to measure network performance.

Any use of independent data to support the mapping of mobile coverage and performance of mobile networks needs to be done in a robust way; this is something Ofcom are currently exploring.