Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Extended Area Service programme, for what reason only six sites in Argyll and Bute are suitable for use by a commercial 4G service.
We have chosen a future-proofed design for all mast structures in Bute and Argyll, meaning that they can be easily upgraded to allow access by the UK’s commercial mobile operators to improve coverage to communities.
A number of EAS sites are not currently able to support commercial services for technical or financial reasons. The HO is working with DCMS under the SRN programme to provide significant investment in many of these sites to enable 4G coverage to be possible from as many of the EAS sites as possible.