Poor phone signals 'putting lives at risk'
MP Owen Paterson has told mobile phone bosses they are putting lives at risk by not improving reception in rural parts of the county.
The former minister said he was concerned there are still many areas in Shropshire without a good mobile phone signal, meaning that many people would be unable to make an emergency call.
And he praised the Shropshire Star's Get Us Connected campaign which led to a petition of thousands of signatures being handed in to EE, Vodafone, 3 and O2 calling for improvements in rural service.
The North Shropshire MP said: "Local businesses need to be able to communicate instantly and effectively and it is not just existing businesses that this affects. There is a real impact on inward investment as businesses take the decision not to set up in an area with a poor signal.
"Not only is a good signal important for local business to thrive, it is even more vital to ensure access to the emergency services. No matter where you are in the county, you should be able to call for an ambulance, the fire service or the police without fear that you may not get a signal.
"The current lack of mobile phone reception puts lives at risk."
Mr Paterson said the problem is being cause by a system which was designed for voice calls being swamped with "a deluge of data" from photos and videos.
"New infrastructure is needed to meet demand," he said. "Work to upgrade is simply not keeping up with this unforeseen extra demand. New infrastructure is needed to bring us up to speed with the rest of the country by ensuring the roll out of 4G locally."
The MP said he met with representatives from Vodafone in the House of Commons where he made it clear to them that the service locally is actually getting worse.
He said: "It is simply not acceptable for my constituents to be disadvantaged. It is impossible to maintain a signal between the five North Shropshire market towns on any network - in my experience they are all as bad as each other. Residents travelling between towns should not have to put up with being cut off.
"But progress is being made. Thousands of people signed the Get Us Connected petition calling for EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 to improve their service in rural areas and networks are beginning to respond.
"Vodafone claim that they will bring their service to 98 per cent of the UK population as soon as possible - a positive step for North Shropshire if it can be achieved.
Mr Paterson said he has arranged a follow up meeting with the phone company in mid-October to discuss the issue further and plans to meet a delegation from BT at the Conservative Party conference.
All mobile network providers have also been invited by Connecting Shropshire to attend a meeting in December to share their plans for Shropshire.
