Wiltshire valley locals build their own mobile phone network

The village hall in Bowerchalke is an unlikely setting for a mobile technology revolution. Yet local residents, surrounded by crocheted goods and local jams, have spent three years forging a mobile phone network to bridge their own digital divide. The experimental Ch4lke Mobile, which runs over just five masts, can connect homes to a network capable of delivering broadband-like speeds, in an area that had been left behind by the digital revolution. The fledgling network has just secured part of a £2.25m government grant to fill in England’s largest “not-spot” — an area with no mobile signal — and could offer a solution to other pockets in the country blighted by a lack of coverage.