Andrew’s campaign for rural mobile coverage triumphs  

The long parliamentary campaign backed by High Peak MP Andrew Bingham to bring mobile coverage to rural areas achieved a victory this week, as OFCOM finally announced proposals to increase broadband coverage to an estimated 98% of the UK population.Traditionally, up to 6 million people in Britain have been excluded from good mobile coverage, particularly in rural areas. (Mobile phone companies were only obliged to cover 95% of the population, 90% of the time).Andrew was one of the leaders of the campaign to increase the coverage. He signed a back-bench business committee debate urging OFCOM to increase the coverage to at least 98% of the population, and then spoke in the debate in the House of Commons on 19 May 2011, saying:“Previously when people set up businesses, they had to install things called utilities: gas, electricity and water. In the 21st century, there are four utilities, because,...