EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three have signed an agreement with the Government to improve mobile coverage for UK consumers.
The legal agreement, spearheaded by Culture Secretary Sajid Javid, requires the operators to bring voice coverage to 90 percent of the UK by 2017.
The £5 billion investment programme will also expand full coverage from all four mobile operators from 69 percent to 85 percent of geographic areas.
This will halve the total number of areas which currently face patchy coverage and cut total "not-spots", where there is no mobile coverage, by two-thirds.
Javid commented:
"For far too long, too many parts of the UK have regularly suffered from poor mobile coverage leaving them unable to make calls or send texts. Now at last we have progress that will give the UK the world-class mobile phone coverage it needs and deserves."
The Conservative minister has previously garnered press attention for his well-publicised attempts to improve mobile phone coverage since his promotion to the Cabinet.
Derek McManus, Chief Operating Officer of O2, said: "A partnership between government and the mobile operators is required to maximise coverage across the UK, so this agreement is a good outcome for our customers. It will support investment in our network, while ensuring that strong competition remains between the different networks."
