National coverage

National coverage of vital importance

Mobile communication contributes towards a safer and more livable society. National coverage is of vital importance to this. Some examples:

  • Approximately 80% of calls to the emergency number 112 are made from a mobile phone.
  • 70% of health care institutions already use mobile applications.
  • Patients whose bodily functions need to be monitored can be treated at home thanks to mobile communication and surveillance devices.
  • Police officers no longer need to go to their station to report a criminal offence; they can now do it using their mobile phone.
  • An ECG can be sent from an ambulance, using a mobile device. The patient can then be transported to the right hospital and treated on arrival. View the mobile ECG here


How can we achieve this?

  • In our main market, the Netherlands, we provide access to ICT services for 100% of households and companies. 65% has at least 20 MBps; this should be 70% with at least 40 MBps at the end of 2012. We achieve this by upgrading our copper network (“pair bonding”) and the roll out of glass fiber.
  • 98% of Dutch area is now covered with our UMTS-network, a figure that is the highest amongst all the telecommunications operators worldwide. The next phase is to increase speed on UMTS and to establish a LTE network in order to offer new services.
  • In Germany and Belgium we are the challenger of the former state owned telecomoperators. In these countries we focus on providing network quality and coverage that is as good as or better than our competitors. We are rolling out LTE in these countries too.

Masts are needed in order to ensure national coverage. In 2011 there were roughly 25,000 masts for the GSM and UMTS networks of all the mobile operators in the Netherlands. The Antenna Register website shows where the masts are located. At the present moment there is national coverage for mobile communication. The volume of mobile calls and data traffic is increasing, while the number of calls per mast is limited. Extra masts will be needed to cope with this increased demand in capacity. Moreover, GSM masts will have to be replaced by UMTS masts because the licenses for the use of GSM frequencies will expire in the next few years.

If municipalities and owners are reluctant to cooperate with installing base stations with UMTS masts, this could have an effect on contactability in those areas – an unwelcome situation for consumers, businesses and social applications such as health care, public order and safety. Thanks to mobile communication and a good local coverage (extra) lives can be saved.

More social applications of mobile communication are described in the flyer Maatschappelijke meerwaarde mobiele communicatie of MoNet (Dutch. PDF, 201 kB), the cooperative of mobile network operators in the Netherlands.