FRUSTRATED mobile phone customers are being invited to voice their concerns about signal strength to a government minister.

Ed Vaizey, Minister for Digital Industries and MP for Wantage, said he would look into connectivity issues as it emerged a councillor had expressed worries about the problem at County Hall, Oxford.

Oxfordshire County Council ward member for Wolvercote and Summertown Jean Fooks said councillors and council staff were suffering signal problems in the city.

The county council has a contract with Vodafone to provide staff with phones run by the network.

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It is understood that the authority had recently had devices installed at County Hall to help boost reception.

Mrs Fooks said: “There is no doubt that everyone is aware of coverage problems in County Hall and North Oxford is also very bad.

“There are lots of people working for the council who rely on that signal and we expect a decent service.

“I personally find it difficult to use my BlackBerry at home and sometimes have to go into my garden to get signal. In a city like Oxford, it is not the connection that you expect.”

But Vodafone spokeswoman Jane Frapwell said coverage could only be improved in the city by installing more masts.

She said: “In order to provide coverage we must be able to install masts.

“While we always share an existing structure where we can, this is not always possible. Building a new mast in the right place requires the agreement of the land or site owner and the appropriate planning permission from the local authority.”

According to data available from Ofcom, the UK communications watchdog, in areas of Oxford north of St Giles’ there are 16 base stations.

Of those, 3 owns five, Orange [EE] owns four, O2 owns four, Vodafone owns two and T-Mobile owns one.

Mr Vaizey said the Government was looking at introducing national roaming, which would allow customer phones to switch between phone masts ran by rival companies He said: “I’m very happy to look at any problems with connectivity in Oxford that people want to bring to my attention. Councils can also work with operators to help them site masts where coverage is needed.”

Bob Price, leader of planning authority Oxford City Council, said: “In the last five years we saw a lot of applications for the roll out of 3G, but recently, in the last two years, there have not been as many.

“It may be that there are problems with finding land to put the transmitters on in areas such as North Oxford, where land owners do not want them put up.”

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