Vodafone Rural Open Sure Signal Programme

Vodafone Rural Open Sure Signal Programme 

The Vodafone Rural Open Sure Programme will give up to 100 rural communities across the UK, with little or no mobile coverage, the opportunity to apply to have Vodafone 3G mobile coverage in their area. 

Vodafone’s initial Rural Open Sure Signal trial, which started in 2012, has seen the connection of 12 rural communities across the UK, from Walls in the Shetland Islands to Newton St Cyres in Devon.  The communities connected so far have been enjoying our mobile coverage to stay in touch with friends and families, whilst businesses - from GPs to a mussel farmer - now have mobile coverage to help make their businesses work better. Due to the success of the trial, for both consumers and small enterprises, we’ve decided to extend the programme to 100 further rural communities across the UK.

What is the Rural Open Sure Signal programme?
In rural and remote locations across the UK, the economic case for traditional networks can be challenging.  This may be due to the geography of the area or difficulties with siting masts in places such as national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty.  

Vodafone Rural Open Sure Signal programme uses ‘femtocell’ technology to provide a Vodafone 3G signal in areas where traditional mobile coverage has been unable to reach. 

About the size of a domestic broadband box  and in a range of colours (white/grey/brown), the units use existing broadband services to deliver the mobile signal needed to provide 3G coverage, where before there was little or none. The units can be installed on any number of buildings including village halls, pubs, shops and homes across the community to ensure widespread mobile coverage. 

What do the communities need to do?
We are encouraging communities to nominate a Village Champion to lead the application process and ensure that the community has a number of things in place before submitting their application form.  These include ensuring the community has at least a 4MB broadband connection, which is essential as Rural Open Sure Signal units work from a broadband connection, to identifying 5-10 properties across the community, often on buildings on a hill or in a ‘community hub’, on which to site our boxes.  Application forms and full information on the programme can be found on our dedicated webpages at www.vodafone.co.uk/rural.

What’s next?
Once the Village Champions have completed the applications we have ask them to send them to us as soon as they can before the application closure date of 14 October 2014 so that we can announce the successful communities in the autumn.

For more information on the Rural Open Sure Signal programme visit  www.vodafone.co.uk/rural