On Friday 10th February more than 50 people came to an event hosted at the Rocket House in Cromer to hear more about the North Norfolk Liberal Democrats’ campaign to improve mobile phone signal in North Norfolk.

Download the slides here: North Norfolk mobile phone project presentation_web.

County Council candidate Steffan Aquarone explained how he’d been touring villages doing residents’ surveys and found that a great many people experienced difficulty getting a decent phone signal. It seems to be a problem that neither the Government nor the big mobile phone companies are willing or able to solve.

But there is another way and Steff was joined in Cromer by mobile industry expert Rob Smith to explain how to set up a community-owned mobile phone company – a bit like some villages have done in other parts of the country to improve their broadband.

The project will involve inviting people to join a new MVNO or Mobile Virtual Network Operator, that runs on the “rails” of one of the big main networks in the same way Tesco or Virgin Mobile do but that also involves installing additional “small cell” transmitters in communities so the signal can reach rural areas.