Caerphilly County Borough is said to be the first council in the UK to create a mobile signal checker with Streetwave.

This collaborative effort aims to assist residents and businesses in pinpointing the highest performing mobile networks in their area.

Following a series of coverage complaints from residents and council staff, the partnership with Streetwave was established in September 2023.

Streetwave has permanently incorporated its advanced data collection equipment into Caerphilly's waste collection vehicles.

This move has facilitated weekly mobile coverage surveys, covering every address within the council's jurisdiction.

These surveys have been hailed as innovative due to the volume and variety of data collected.

The analysis is ongoing concerning the quality of the four main mobile networks in the UK, namely EE, O2, Three, and Vodafone.

Factors including throughput speeds, signal strength, and network generation information are being recorded during these surveys.

The data from these surveys is then converted into a mobile coverage checker for residents and local businesses.

In stark contrast to traditional coverage checkers, which rely on mathematical models and limited surveying, Caerphilly's innovation uses practical user experience data.

This data has been gathered from almost every address within the council area, demonstrating exactly which mobile networks provide the most rapid throughput speeds.

Caerphilly ensures that the data stays current by updating it monthly when the waste collection vehicles complete their routes.

Future anomalies can thus be detected promptly.

Residents within the borough of Caerphilly can access the exact upload and download speeds of EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 simply by entering their postcode and selecting their address.

The coverage checker operates within a 30m radius outside homes and businesses and can be accessed through the Streetwave website.

This innovation is particularly beneficial in areas such as Caerphilly county borough, which has a diverse population of 176,000.

Its unique features of hilly topography and a blend of urban and rural communities further necessitate the requirement for reliable mobile networks.