You may have read in the news last month, that to get the best mobile coverage in the UK, people are putting foreign SIM cards into their smart phones. Why? Because a foreign SIM card will search for any available network mast, not just those from a particular UK carrier.
It seems a bit extreme, but if you must have mobile coverage for your job, or even personal life, it is actually an effective way forward. Research commissioned by the former Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps found that mobile companies had fallen behind on eradicating “not spots”, or black holes in coverage.
The report said: “Overseas visitors to the UK receive better and broader mobile coverage because their Sim cards allow for national roaming. In contrast, there is no such agreement amongst our mobile phone providers for Britons.” It added that a small-scale system of mobile roaming should be pursued in areas badly affected by “not spots”.
Mr Shapps’s British Infrastructure Group said that despite a £5 billion investment agreement between the government and mobile operators, there are still up to 525 areas in Britain in need of a phone mast to provide basic coverage. The target was agreed under David Cameron to give mobile coverage to 90 per cent of Britain’s geographic area by December next year, but the report says it is likely to be missed.
The good news?
You no longer need to insert a foreign SIM card into your mobile to access all mobile masts across all networks in the UK.
VTSL Mobile, the new SIM-only business mobile service from the hosted communications provider, offers a MultiNet option, that when activated will switch to whatever network is available. The result is users get the best coverage available in the UK, utilising all mobile masts.
The new mobile phone service from VTSL has other benefits as well. It connects with your office’s fixed line business phone system. Calls made between the office and business mobiles are ‘on net’ and free of charge. Moreover, call data from mobiles can be viewed in the same online portal as the normal business telephony. And there is only one bill for all company telecoms.
Furthermore, the hosted VoIP provider allows customers to add and remove SIMs as they wish – with only a rolling 30-day contract. As a SIM-only service, VTSL Mobile also allows businesses to operate a BYOD (bring your own device) policy, or alternatively deal with smartphone suppliers like Apple directly, removing middle men and mark-ups.
Safe to say, as can be seen from VTSL, the market is responding to what has been a notoriously over-priced, long-contract, poor-coverage sector. To learn more about VTSL Mobile or cloud-based business phone systems, please email info@vtsl.net or call 0207 078 3200.
