Shared Rural Mast - activation timeline

[OHbi-Wan]

A mast was erected locally in an area with no previous cell coverage (postcode SY10 0NE) and is active on vodafone as part of the Home Office Emergency Services Network.  Local planning said on 13th February that further permission to extend the mast and add additional antennae was not needed.  I would like to know if EE will activate an antenna on this mast, whether it will be 4G or 5G,  and if so when we can expect it to be activated.

[Chris_B]

@OHbi-Wan   EE will not say if they plan to install an antenna on the mast.  You’ll have to wait and see.  

[bristolian]

"active on vodafone as part of the Home Office Emergency Services Network" cannot be correct.

The Emergency Services Network is provided solely by EE, although sites built as part of it are open to other networks to share. Thus far take-up has been quite limited & early-stage for the most part. ESN has two primary elements - sites commercially built by EE, and EAS-sites which are government-funded but made available to EE as part of ESN.

All new EE sites are multi-technology and include 4G service as a bare minimum - either on B20-800Mhz and/or B3-1800Mhz. The latter is often co-located with 2G-1800Mhz service.

[OHbi-Wan]

Interesting, thanks @bristolian - I guess Vodafone must have already jumped on the mast as part of the Shared Rural Network.  I just assumed Vodafone provide ESN coverage since they have activated a 4G antenna in the last two weeks.  Obviously I was wrong! 

[bristolian]

It's quite a complex area. The ESN contract is held by EE, for delivery of 4G coverage nationally. EE are providing a significant proportion of the new coverage on a commercial basis, but the designs used for the new site builds are intentionally for multiple MNOs to share as they wish.

There is a lot of overlap between ESN, S4GI (in Scotland) & SRN site builds - EE are natural leaders in both site volumes and coverage targets, but public perception is everything at the present time!

EE consider 4G as the base coverage layer now. 5G is an extra capacity enhancement, but 2G remains live for legacy devices. Hence all new site builds having B3 and/or B20-4G as a bare minimum.