Reading: Lack of mobile coverage in buildings 'threatens productivity and revenue'

Just 17% of businesses have access to full-bar mobile coverage in their buildings, according to a new report, Building Connections, commissioned by Reading-based Vilicom. This lack of mobile coverage seriously threatens productivity, revenue, reputational damage and customer satisfaction for organisations of all kinds.

Given that 78% of adults own a smartphone and check it every 12 minutes on average, and with the number of UK landlines falling 35% from 10 million in 2010 to 6.4m in 2017, it’s no wonder that 89% of business owners consider having guaranteed indoor coverage as important. However, as they increasingly lean upon mobile enterprise apps and services for everyday operations, more than 1.5m business owners are seeing poor mobile coverage impact their ability to do business.

The challenges of securing indoor coverage are impacting customer and staff satisfaction for businesses: 23% said that customers/clients had complained about the quality of mobile coverage on their premises, and more than one in four businesses have had complaints from staff. Organisations are struggling to solve this issue, despite nearly a third (32%) of businesses actively paying to improve their mobile coverage - only 17% consider themselves to have full bar coverage.

“Poor indoor mobile coverage is a commonly misunderstood problem. Many businesses assume that poor mobile coverage is someone else’s problem or that changing networks or installing WiFi are acceptable solutions, without realising that they can take direct control of the issues for themselves,” commented Seán Keating, CEO at Vilicom. “Telecoms companies are investing huge amounts to improve coverage for consumers, and data is as cheap as it’s ever been.

“For businesses to truly take advantage of this, we need to help them understand where and why mobile coverage can work. Building owners and businesses need empowerment; you can’t expect your electricity supplier to come and change your light bulbs for you, but you know instinctively how to deal with a broken lightbulb. It’s time businesses were given a helping hand in understanding how to check for indoor mobile coverage before buying or renting a new space, and where to turn for a solution that will give them full bar coverage throughout their premises.”

The Building Connections: Indoor Mobile Coverage Study is available to download here. This has been launched alongside Vilicom’s new Building Connections service, the first indoor mobile coverage solution designed with the building owner in mind, which is now available across the UK & Ireland.