Clare TD Timmy Dooley is calling on Irish mobile phone operators to change the way they measure and report 3G and 4G coverage to better reflect the reality facing phone users on the ground.
Fianna Fáil’s Spokesperson on Communications said mobile phone operators all over the country are very misleading.
“Advertisement after advertisement from a variety of phone operators makes claims that they provide 90% or 93% coverage. This is highly misleading. What’s hidden in the fine print is that their definition of coverage is based on where people are resident, and not geographic coverage.”
He added “People in vast swathes of Ireland are incapable of receiving decent, consistent phone coverage, particularly in rural and remote communities, because operators are focusing on boosting coverage in easy to reach, urban areas, while anyone who has to travel, even between major population centres, are experiencing very unreliable services and dropped calls.”
Deputy Dooley asked what will happen in an emergency due to the unreliable phone coverage. “When you travel across certain parts of the the country, phone coverage is completely unreliable, placing people and communities in danger What would happen if an accident occurred, and an ambulance was needed to be called.
The Minister needs to be clear in his ongoing negotiations with mobile phone operators that they must focus on providing coverage across the entire state, and not just in easy to reach urban areas”.