Thousands of UK lampposts and bus shelters could become mini phone masts
Key Points
- Small Cell Forum published a guide urging councils to host 4G and 5G small cells on street furniture
- It said council red tape, not technology, is the main barrier to better town centre signal
- The group backed neutral hosting and non-exclusive Open Access Agreements for council assets
- Birmingham has already opened thousands of streetscape assets to Wireless Infrastructure Group
- BT fitted six Belfast Harbour CCTV columns with small cells for a driverless shuttle in 2025
Industry body, the Small Cell Forum, has told UK councils to open up their lampposts, bus shelters and CCTV columns to mobile operators to fix poor phone signal in town centres.
The group published the first part of a guide for local authorities this week, setting out how small cells can be bolted onto existing street furniture to add 4G and 5G capacity where big masts fall short.
Small cells are compact mobile base stations that boost coverage in a targeted area such as a high street, station or event space.
The Small Cell Forum said the equipment does not replace the wider mobile network but works alongside it, easing pressure in busy spots where large masts cannot deliver enough capacity quickly enough.
It added that the kit can be fitted to lighting columns, shelters, rooftops and other council-owned assets depending on power and fibre availability.
The guide said the biggest barriers to rollout are organisational rather than technical. Councils that make deployment overly complex, costly or restrictive risk losing operator interest and slowing rollout in their area, it warned.
The group told councils to decide what they want from their street assets, whether that is cost recovery, a modest income or wider public benefit. It also recommended non-exclusive Open Access Agreements so that more than one operator can use the same council infrastructure on consistent terms.
The Small Cell Forum pushed neutral hosting as the preferred model, where a single company installs shared kit that several mobile networks can use. It said this cuts street clutter, avoids repeated installations and means councils deal with one provider rather than four separate operators.
The guide listed several areas where better mobile signal helps councils meet their own targets, including:
- Card payments, events and footfall on high streets and in town centres
- Journey information and passenger connectivity along transport routes
- Mobile working for council field staff and access to digital council services
- Residents relying on mobile data where fixed broadband or indoor Wi-Fi is not enough
- Emergency communications in busy or disrupted environments
- Sensor networks and environmental monitoring for smart city projects
The Small Cell Forum asked councils to appoint a single point of contact, or digital champion, so operators have one named lead to deal with across planning, highways, lighting, estates and legal teams.
It said councils should also commission coverage analysis to pinpoint where signal fails residents and businesses.
Birmingham City Council has already granted neutral host Wireless Infrastructure Group access to thousands of its streetscape assets, which the guide cited as its main case study.
The network first carried Three UK’s 5G services and now delivers 4G and 5G coverage from Birmingham Airport into the city centre, alongside a testbed for driverless vehicles.
BT used six CCTV columns owned by Belfast Harbour to provide 5G for Northern Ireland’s first autonomous public shuttle in the Titanic Quarter in 2025.
Planning restrictions forced BT to split the equipment between the top of the column and a new wrap-around cabinet at its base, which the guide described as a UK first, and all six sites went live within six months.
The Small Cell Forum launched its Local Authority Connectivity Group in February 2026, with a steering group drawn from Oxfordshire County Council, Glasgow City Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, Wireless Infrastructure Group and BT Group.
Council staff can join the group free of charge, and the group said its work currently focuses on the UK before extending to other countries.
“This initiative gives us valuable two-way communication with the end-users of connectivity solutions,” said Simon Fletcher, chief strategy officer at Small Cell Forum, at the group’s launch.
The second part of the guide, covering the practical steps councils can take, is due later this year.
