With ongoing digitalization, mobile network usage is increasingly shifting into buildings and vehicles. This raises the question of whether regulatory requirements need to focus more strongly on reliable indoor coverage to ensure digital inclusion. The article therefore compares indoor coverage obligations in Austria, the United Kingdom, Romania and France.
Austria and the United Kingdom have so far applied indoor obligations only once, primarily to improve connectivity in areas with inadequate broadband coverage. In Romania, indoor obligations have been used as a recurring instrument in spectrum auctions since 2012, for example to enhance coverage in specific regions or improve service quality in means of transport. France pursues a more user-oriented approach by mandating specific measures in indoor areas, some of which must be implemented upon customer request.
A central technical challenge lies in choosing appropriate attenuation factors for buildings and transport vehicles. These parameters are defined in advance by regulatory authorities in coordination with network operators, as are quality parameters that must be validated using different measurement methods and usage situations. Robust, standardised measurement and testing procedures are therefore needed to objectively capture and compare indoor coverage.
Indoor obligations operate in a field of tension between heterogeneous user expectations and the ability to monitor compliance transparently. They can improve service quality without requiring highly detailed ex-ante coverage obligations in spectrum assignments. At the same time, the analysis shows that some regulatory authorities aim to provide more information on indoor coverage. Such publicly available information can not only increase transparency for end users but also support infrastructure competition.
