Alongside updating its Market Infrastructure Report and making recommendations for improving connectivity and troubled ‘not-spots’, Ofcom has today launched an interactive tool that allows people to check fixed broadband, mobile, TV, and radio coverage across the UK.
As anyone who has moved house can tell you, arriving in your new home to discover that there’s no mobile reception or that only slow broadband options are available can put a bit of a dampener on that ‘new home feeling’. Now, however, the Ofcom Interactive Map offers a simple tool for some general guidance on what to expect.
To use it, you can scroll to a specific area on the map, or search by postcode or place name. In our testing, specific postcode searches were hit-and-miss but providing the general area always seemed to produce some usable data.
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For fixed broadband, it shows upload and download speeds; for mobile networks (2G/3G/4G) it shows an overview of all networks’ coverage, as well as allowing you to filter by individual operators in a specific area.
The tool also gives an indication of Freeview digital TV coverage alongside digital radio information.
It won’t make your connectivity options better, but it might stop you getting a shock next time you have to move house.
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