How good is your mobile signal right here?

Because otherwise you’d be measuring the router you’re connected to, not your phone’s mobile signal. The test refuses to run on WiFi for exactly that reason.

It’s kept as part of an area — never your exact spot — with the speed, the time of day, whether you were indoors or out, and the network you told us. Inland that area is ~500 m, so it can never point at a home. On the beaches, piers and promenade, where nobody lives, it’s ~140 m, because the signal there really does change from the end of the pier to the big wheel and we’d rather the map showed it. Nothing that identifies you. It goes into a pool that only ever compares you against your area.

Indoors or outdoors, yes — you tell us with the button you press, and it’s the single most useful thing you can add. A slow reading through thick walls or foil-backed insulation says more about the building than about the network, and without knowing which, the two look identical on a map. Whether something is blocking the line of sight to the mast, we genuinely can’t tell — and neither can any other web page, because you’d need to know where the mast is, and almost nobody does. The indoors/outdoors answer is the honest version of that question. We also record how good your phone says its GPS fix is, so a vague position isn’t placed on the map more precisely than it deserves.

No, and it’s worth explaining why, because it’s a fair question. On your home broadband, ‘how many devices are sharing it’ is a real and often decisive question. On mobile it’s different: your phone usually has that connection to itself, and the sharing happens up at the mast, between you and everyone around you. Nothing on the handset can see that. What we do record is the time of day, because that’s what actually moves it — the same spot can be excellent at 9am and painful at 6pm on the seafront in August. For home and business lines, our broadband compare does ask about the size of the household or team.

No, and we won’t. We show you your own network because it’s your result. We don’t publish network league tables — every network has good and bad patches, and one phone on one day can’t settle that fairly. Areas compete, and so can you: the towns race each other on the map and a shared result is a challenge to beat. That’s fair because it’s the same phones on both sides. A network table built from whichever phones happened to test wouldn’t be.

The van map is one instrument — a roof-mounted router on one network — measured the same way every time, which is what makes its ranked places citable. This page is everyone’s phones. Different data, kept separate on purpose.

Two people isn’t ‘typical for your area’ — it’s two people. We only show a comparison once a square has eight or more readings, so early on you might be one of the first. Eight is the point where one phone in a basement stops moving the median; three isn’t, and thirty would take a year. On the seafront the floor is five, because those squares are a quarter of the size and almost every reading there is taken outdoors.

Because the moments you most need it are the ones you can’t plan for. A 999 call will try any network your phone can see, not just your own, but it still needs a signal — and when you’ve been borrowed onto another network, the call handler can’t ring you back. The government’s Emergency Alerts only arrive over 4G or 5G; a phone sitting on 2G, 3G or WiFi gets nothing. Knowing where your phone actually works — the end of the garden, the beach car park, the back of the shop — is worth ten seconds.

Yes — but only if you register your phone first, and that has to happen before you ever need it. Text the word register to 999, read the reply and answer YES, and you’re done; it takes about ten seconds. It’s meant for anyone who can’t safely speak — if you’re deaf or hard of hearing, if speech is difficult, or if being overheard would put you in danger. A reply usually comes within about two minutes; if nothing arrives in three, get help another way. You’ll need to register again if you change your number, and it’s worth doing on the phones of anyone you look after. Whether you call or text, it still needs a signal to leave your phone — which is the whole point of knowing where yours works.

Nothing grand. It means the bus app loads before the bus goes, the card machine takes the payment, the GP’s text arrives, the photo sends from the beach on the first try. Most of that needs a modest, steady signal rather than a fast one, which is why the map’s middle band is ‘fine for calls and email’ and not a speed number. Being connected beats not being connected; this page just tells you where that’s true.

A not-spot is somewhere no network gives you a usable signal; a partial not-spot is where some do and some don’t. On paper they barely exist, which is exactly why the remaining gaps are so hard to find from a desk. A square that stays red after eight outdoor readings is something we can take to BCP Council and the operators — and until it’s fixed, something you can route around.

More than a quarter of working adults in Great Britain now hybrid-work, and a lot of those days happen somewhere that isn’t an office: the kitchen, a café, a parked car between visits. ‘Fine for calls’ and ‘fine for a video call with your screen shared’ are different bars, which is why the map has separate bands. Test outside, then test inside where you actually sit: if the number collapses between the two, it’s the building, not the network — and that’s fixable.

Yes, once enough squares near you are verified. After your test the page lists the fastest measured squares within a walk or a short drive, each with a distance and a compass direction, and a tap shows it on the map. It only lists squares with eight or more readings (five on the seafront), so early on it will say ‘still filling in’ rather than guess; and the figure is the typical speed of everyone’s phones on every network, not anyone’s best day.

Then you already know the problem: the pitch with the view is the pitch with no signal. Our own campervan carries a roof-mounted router and logs what it gets around Bournemouth on the van map, but that’s one instrument on one network. This page is the other half: everyone’s phones, every network, so the square you’re parked in reflects the phone in your pocket rather than our roof. The two sets of data are kept apart on purpose and never averaged together.

Because Ofcom’s checker is a prediction, not a measurement. It’s built from the operators’ own computer models on a 50 m grid, and Ofcom itself says the models cannot guarantee coverage at a very local level. In 2025 Dorset Council put measuring kit on 32 bin lorries and drove 2,400 miles: the model said about 90% of Dorset had good coverage from all four networks, and the lorries measured under half. That survey stopped at the Dorset Council boundary, so Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole were never driven. This page is how BCP gets measured, one phone at a time.

Because a map of exact pins is a map of where people live, and most readings are taken at home. So your phone’s real position exists for one instant on our server and is then replaced by the centre of a ~500 m square: enough to show a district, never enough to show a door. On the beaches, piers and promenade, where nobody lives, the squares are ~140 m, because the signal really does change along the front. Your phone also tells us how good its fix was, and a vague fix is never placed on the fine grid.

We publish it. The squares are already public — the same feed the map draws from — as squares and medians — nothing finer, and the data stays ours. If a council, researcher or journalist needs the underlying figures, ask us and we’ll share them case by case. Verified squares appear on our town pages, and once an area has enough outdoor readings to stand behind, we’ll take it to BCP Council, the operators and the local press, because a red square with numbers on it gets fixed faster than a complaint does. No reading ever carries a name, an address or anything that identifies a phone, and no network-by-network figures leave here.

A family IT support business — 365 Techies, in Bournemouth since 1995. Our day job is looking after people’s laptops, PCs, WiFi and email on monthly plans (from £18.25 a month for homes, and business plans for teams) across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. The signal map is free because measured coverage helps everyone stay safe and connected — and, honestly, because it shows what we can do. If your computer or WiFi needs looking after, see monthly IT support or ring 01202 775566.