New 'mini masts' appear in Peterborough city centre to improve mobile phone coverage
Five special antennas located around the city
Mobile phone coverage in Peterborough has been given a boost with the installation of new ‘mini-masts’ in the city centre.
Five of the mini antennas have been attached to lamp-posts and phone boxes in busy parts of the city centre including near the Queensgate Shopping Centre and the Rivergate Shopping Centre.
The city is one of a number of locations chosen by the mobile network operator EE for the new equipment that is designed to help improve mobile coverage in very busy areas and during major events.
The mini antennas, also known as small cells, offer performance boosts in high-demand areas thanks to their size, which makes them easy to install on everyday street infrastructure.
Greg McCall, chief networks officer for the BT Group, said: “Small cells are an integral component within our mobile network, ensuring that even in the busiest places our customers have access to the full performance of the UK’s best network.
“To reach 1,000 deployments across the UK, including our first 5G sites, demonstrates our commitment to delivering unrivalled mobile connectivity to all four corners of the UK.”
EE uses advanced network analytics to identify specific locations which would benefit from the performance boost enabled by a small cell.
It then works with partners Nokia and Ericsson to deploy the cells, which help reduce congestion and enable customers to benefit from speeds of up to 300Mbps for 4G cells, and 600Mbps for 5G
EE has deployed more than 1,000 small cells across the UK, marking 400 new deployments over 12 months.