Mobile signal in one of London’s richest suburbs ‘worse than Kabul a decade ago’, says MP
Key Points
- Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat says mobile reception in Dulwich, an expensive south London suburb, is worse than it was in Kabul a decade ago.
- He pays for two contracts, O2 and EE, and says neither is reliable enough to let him work.
- Tugendhat names O2 as the worst for signal and says coverage has declined while prices have risen.
- He accuses EE, O2 and Vodafone of operating a "near monopoly" with no incentive to improve, calling them "rentier" companies.
- He criticises £4.5 billion in government spending on bike lanes and crossings as "virtue signalling" while infrastructure is neglected.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat says the mobile signal in Dulwich, one of London’s most expensive suburbs, is worse than it was in Kabul a decade ago.
The former Security Minister and chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee made the comparison in a series of posts on X, describing reception in the affluent south London district as so unreliable that he was unable to work despite paying for two separate contracts.
Tugendhat said he holds contracts with both O2 and EE, and that neither network delivers a dependable connection.
He argued that mobile coverage is “useless in vast areas of Britain” and has deteriorated over time, singling out the inability to work on trains and contrasting Britain unfavourably with France, where he said rail connectivity is far better.
The MP for Tonbridge, who served in Afghanistan as an Army officer, used his own experience in Kabul a decade ago as a benchmark, claiming reception in the Afghan capital at that time outperformed what he now receives in a supposed global city.
He went on to reject any suggestion that the problem is short-term or localised. “Don’t pretend this is temporary. This is universal. It’s constant,” he wrote, adding that he had raised the issue with network teams in Kent for years without resolution.
He said signal quality had fallen even as prices rose, and named O2 as “the worst for signal.”
Don’t pretend this is temporary. This is universal. It’s constant. I’ve spoken to your teams about it in Kent for years and you do nothing.
The signal has got worse but your prices have gone up. @O2 is the worst for signal. https://t.co/hSGq11fYmL— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) June 14, 2026
In a further post, Tugendhat took aim at the structure of the UK mobile market itself, accusing the major networks of operating a “near monopoly” that removes any pressure to improve.
He said EE now operates alongside O2 and Vodafone in a market with little incentive to invest, describing the operators as “effectively just a rentier company on the back of the British people.”
Tugendhat criticised government spending priorities, claiming £4.5 billion was being directed towards bike lanes and crossings while critical infrastructure was neglected.
He characterised such schemes as “virtue signalling vanity projects” and argued that mobile and digital infrastructure should be treated as urgent.
The comments tap into a long-running consumer grievance over patchy coverage, “not-spots,” and the gap between advertised and actual service across large parts of the UK.
Persistent complaints about rural and in-train connectivity have continued despite operator commitments to expand coverage, and the consolidation of the market has narrowed the number of networks running their own infrastructure.
