VodafoneThree said on 16 September 2026 that around 100 of its mobile sites in London are either already switched off or expected to go offline by the end of this year, because landowners have served Notices to Quit ahead of building redevelopment. The operator says replacement sites take an average of five years to bring into service, far longer than the 18 months’ notice it typically receives. For London users, that means coverage gaps on some high streets and at some stations are likely to persist for years rather than months, regardless of which network or SIM plan they are on.
The claims come from a report the operator commissioned, Lost Sites, Lost Signal: The Impact of Notices to Quit on Londoners, published alongside a press release on its corporate site. ISPreview UK covered the warning the same day.
What a Notice to Quit actually does
A Notice to Quit (NTQ) is a legal notice a landowner serves on a mobile operator to require the removal of equipment — usually rooftop antennas — when a building is being renovated, redeveloped or demolished. The operator has to take the kit down whether or not an alternative location is ready.
That is the core of VodafoneThree’s complaint. It says the standard 18-month notice period is not enough time to find, agree and commission a replacement. A replacement site has to be technically suitable, physically available, acceptable to the site owner, viable under planning rules, and connectable back into the wider network. In London, where rooftop space is contested and planning is split across many boroughs, clearing all five conditions is slow.
The numbers in the report
VodafoneThree puts the economic cost of NTQ-driven coverage loss in London at around £2.7 billion a year, which it describes as the equivalent of £7.4 million a day. The report also says one in five London high streets have what it calls functional not-spots, and that roughly 60 rail, Underground and Overground stations are affected — including three of the five busiest National Rail stations.
The underlying research combines two methods. Survation polled 1,008 London adults aged 18 and over between 15 and 20 May 2026 via an online panel, weighted by demographics and geography. The economic modelling used Geolytix town classifications and population data to assign productivity values to areas affected by NTQs.
These are operator-commissioned figures, and the economic estimate in particular rests on modelling assumptions rather than measured losses. The site count and the notice-period mismatch are the more concrete parts of the claim.
Not just one operator
The issue has been raised before by a rival. In June 2026, Virgin Media O2 warned that outdated planning rules had forced it to switch off dozens of London mobile sites, saying replacements took more than two years on average and that some locations had been offline for more than seven years. VodafoneThree’s five-year average is a longer estimate than O2’s two-year figure, but both operators are describing the same structural problem: equipment is coming down faster than it can go back up.
What VodafoneThree is asking for
Andrea Donà, VodafoneThree’s Chief Network Officer, is quoted in the release saying that mobile networks are critical national infrastructure, and that when infrastructure is removed before replacements are in place, local communities face years of reduced connectivity.
The report sets out four asks: extend temporary mobile site permissions to 36 months nationally; bring mobile operators into the planning process at the pre-application stage; give the Greater London Authority a stronger coordinating role across boroughs; and identify replacement sites proactively as part of redevelopment projects rather than after the fact.
What it means for SIM users
Nothing changes on any tariff or plan as a result of this announcement — it is a policy intervention, not a product change. But it is a useful reminder that headline network rankings are national averages. If you are choosing a SIM primarily on coverage in a specific part of London, the operator-level coverage checkers remain the practical tool, and this report suggests results in redevelopment-heavy areas may shift over the coming year as sites come down.
There is also no confirmed timeline for any of the planning changes VodafoneThree is requesting. The proposals would require action from central government and the Greater London Authority, and neither has announced a response.