More than a quarter (27 percent) of homes and businesses in the UK can't receive 3G signal for all of the UK's five major networks, says Ofcom.
The research is part of the regulator's first 'Communications Infrastructure' report which must be submitted to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport every three years.
The highlands of Scotland and mid-Wales, which are both rural with hilly terrain, were named the areas of the UK with the worst 3G signal coverage.
Ofcom also revealed 97 percent of premises and two thirds of the UK landmass can receive a 2G signal outdoors from all four 2G networks. This means around 900,000 UK premises can not access all four 2G mobile networks.
The regulator added that while broadband is available through nearly every copper telephone cable in the UK, 14 percent of residential broadband connections are below 2Mbps. Superfast broadband connection, which Ofcom defines as 24Mbps or above, are now available in 58 percent of the UK.
Ofcom said on average residential fixed broadband customers are using 17GB of data per month, which is the equivalent to downloading more than 11 films per month or streaming 12 hours of HD content from the BBC iPlayer service. However, mobile broadband customers use an average of just 0.24GB per month.
When it comes to Digital Terrestrial Television, nearly nine in ten (89 percent) of homes and firms can access the service, while 91 percent of UK also has access to Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) radio coverage.
As part of the report the regulator has also created coverage maps that split the UK into 200 areas and give each a colour based on the ability to receive signal in the area, with green indicating the highest signal coverage and red marking the lowest.
"This is our first report to the Government on the UK's communications infrastructure. We hope it will be a useful reference point for interested parties, particularly in the light of the recent Government funding package of £150million to help address mobile not-spots," said Ofcom's chief technology officer, Steve Unger
"Over the next 12 months, we expect there to be continued rapid growth in availability of super-fast broadband services and data use, and we aim to publish an update on this next summer."
Comments
Maccyroo said: I get 500mb of free 3G data with my Vodafone package when I got my first android smartphone I was worried about incurring extra data charges with news and weather widgets etc Now a few years later experience tells me that I couldnt use 500mb of 3G data in a month if my life depended on it Using the android speedtestnet app I carried out some experimentsAt home using my wifi I got download speeds of 92mbps average and upload speeds of 1mbps This made sense as Im on Virgins 10mbps packageWhen i switch to 3G the fun starts Android market will spend a few minutes loading and then say it has no connection and to retry Speedtest takes about two minutes to find closest server and then although the server is only 30 miles from my home the ping takes 1000 milliseconds Really and the test takes about 4 minutes to complete 20 secs on wifi withdownload speed of 02mbps and upload speed 01mbps OK so maybe there isnt a good connection in my house for 3G I live 12 mile from Tunbridge Wells towncentre in Kent I got into the town centre and 3G speeds shoot up they DOUBLE x100 so i get 004mbps downloads Every so often as i drive around this fair county of KENT i pull over safely of course and run speedtest on my phone The highest speed ever I got was in Maidstone I parked outside the building that houses one of speedtests actual servers fora laugh Now i reached the heady heights of only a 98 millisecond ping and 006 download speed 3G in this country appears to be crap crap crap Why not run a 3G speed survey in the magazine like you have done with broadband landline over the past few years A actual survey where individuals can enter their postcode carrier and 3G download speeds as measured by speedtestnet mobile apps I would be fascinatedby the results
PC Advisor staff said: well spotted Guest All corrected now
Guest said: In the title of this article Receive is spelt wrong
Matt Rogowski said: I get one bar of 2G at my house 1-15 MB broadband and only get 3G in the nearest city Yet I still pay just as much as people who get better connectivity ISPs and network operators need to pull their fingers out and sort out areas that are seriously lagging behind before they go and improve areas that already have above average service Its just not fair on everybody else
Dan Y said: I hope this can institute some massive changes to the UKs communication infrastructure Speaking as someone who struggles to get a stable mobile phone signal in my own home as well as having to make do with sub 1Mbps home broadband I would thoroughly encourage those with the decision making ability to look long and hard at how much further the UK needs to go before becoming as progressive and connected as we would like to think we are