Nottinghamshire's mobile connectivity maps
We have commissioned Farrpoint to survey 4G and 5G mobile network coverage across the county, covering all seven districts to create an interactive map. Drive surveys were carried out across the road networks to cover motorways, A roads, B roads and local and minor roads.
No personal data was collected throughout the project.
Check your area’s signal strength for the four mobile network operators in the UK.
The map can be used to identify which provider offers better coverage in your area.
Nottinghamshire has widely varying levels of mobile signal connectivity. Within our towns, and especially in our rural communities, mobile coverage varies between high speed 5G and poor or non-existent 2/3G reception, often within the same village or neighbourhood.
Current data on signal strength and the availability of 4G and 5G connectivity is unreliable. It is mainly provided by predictive modelling techniques and low-quality crowdsourced data which leads to discrepancies in what mobile operators say is available versus what is actually available to the customer.
This is all the more relevant and necessary with the Public Service Telephone Network switch off (PTSN) in January 2027. This means the traditional copper network used for landline telephone calls is being retired and mobile network coverage becomes increasingly important.
Digital services will be provided by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems instead, whereby customers can make calls via broadband or mobile data rather than on the traditional copper phone lines.
The aim of this project is to identify areas of poor or no coverage that require improvement and to create an interactive map of mobile coverage performance with street level data.
Data collected in the project includes signal strength, download speed, upload speed and ping response time. This was then used to determine whether the mobile coverage was excellent, good, basic or no coverage available.
This is represented in a colour-coded mobile connectivity map, displaying which streets across the County have poor, moderate or excellent signal strength for both 4G and 5G connectivity.
Farrpoint provided a driver with a vehicle and survey equipment to cover our road network. The survey equipment used externally mounted antennas to ensure the most accurate results. This route differs from other approaches to data collection which uses equipment mounted within cabins of refuse vehicles which only produces results measured in-vehicle. These drive surveys were carried out between March and July 2026.
The survey equipment measured radio strength (dBm) and speed tests to calculate download and upload speeds (Mbps) and response times.
Over the survey period Farrpoint surveyed more than 4,728km of roads (96.5% of the road network) to gather data for the project.
Some roads could not be surveyed due to access restrictions including private roads. No personal data relating to network users, users’ calls or personal information was collected during the project.
The results have been mapped to showcase the distribution and intensity of signal strength and network performance metrics across a geographic area.
The mobile connectivity map shows valuable insights into how each of the four mobile network providers in the UK perform in each area. The map can be used to identify which provider offers better coverage in your area.
This updated data set supports investment and improvement to underserved areas in the county which can support access to public services which are online, safe and enables residents to stay in touch with family and friends.
