Back in December of 2016, the UK Government's National Infrastructure Commission published its 'Connected Future' report. It recognised that:

government must take responsibility to secure our digital future ... Government must ensure we have the infrastructure in place to deliver 5G

Amongst the various proposals in the report, many are based on the recognition that 5G will require access to orders of magnitudes more base station sites than are currently deployed for 4G.

This makes a lot of sense. Local planning restrictions already hamper the roll-out of mobile services, not just because local councils think that cell sites are ugly, or even that they damage the environment or health, but the application procedure to get permission to install a site varies wildly from one council to another. Simplifying, harmonising and streamlining the process is essential if the UK, or indeed any country, is going to benefit from whatever it is that 5G is going to offer.

It seems rather short-sighted then, that the Welsh Government is still pondering a change to what are know as Permitted Development Rights (PDR) to allow mobile operators to build masts with a height of 25 metres (82 feet) with reduced planning requirements. At present, in Wales, operators are only allowed to extend the height of their masts to 15 metres (50 feet), whereas in the rest of the UK, the limit is 25 metres.

Wireless Waffle has previously discussed the relative merits of increasing transmitter power compared to increasing antenna height and demonstrated the importance of antenna height. In an area such as Wales where the difficulty in providing coverage is exacerbated by the hilly terrain, and where a large number of mobile 'not-spots' exist, antenna height is of even greater importance. The reluctance to increase the permitted tower height comes in stark contrast to a previous move by the Welsh Government to invest £150 million in trying to provide coverage in these not-spots.



There is no doubt a fear that higher masts will make the countryside look ugly or cluttered, but the counter-balancing effect is that taller masts, means fewer masts. Imagine how many TV transmitter towers there would need to be if their height was limited to 15 metres. If Wales is to rise out of the valleys in terms of mobile coverage, the Welsh Government needs to act quickly, i.e. before 5G comes along, to ensure that the existing not-spot problems are not further heightened (see what we did there?)

As they say in Wales: "Nid yw tegell llawn caws yn cael ei ddefnyddio i ffôn symudol gyda chalon wedi'i dorri."