ANYONE in business in rural Aberdeenshire will know the frustration of not having a mobile phone signal.
Come to think of it, there are parts of the city – Garthdee springs to mind - where mobile reception is also pretty patchy.
And it's not just frustrating: for a business, no signal means lost business as potential customers can't get through to you, and it also means lower productivity.
Here in the North-east, we aren't alone in lacking decent mobile signals.
According to telecoms regulator Ofcom, 29% of Scotland's landmass has no mobile coverage whatsoever, and 48% has no mobile data (that is, internet) coverage.
And if you happened to read the farming section of the P&J on Saturday - you may have seen my comments quoting a report by the Argyll and Bute Economic Forum, highlighting the economic impact of poor connectivity.
The report revealed that lack of mobile data coverage caused £5,000 of lost sales at a local food festival, because stallholders couldn't accept card payments as the mobile signal wasn’t strong enough for the card readers.
The same report also quoted the CEO of a major aquaculture firm who said that the lack of reliable mobile signals was the single biggest barrier to running his business properly.
So there should be the sound of champagne corks popping, or at least three cheers, at the announcement, on Sunday (June 12) from Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Connectivity Fergus Ewing of a Scottish Government plan to improve mobile coverage in Scotland (Mobile Action Plan).
Amongst other things, the plan proposes reducing the burden of business rates on mobile phone masts in rural areas; easing planning constraints; and making public sector land available for telecoms sites.
All that should help reduce the costs of deploying mobile infrastructure,which is a major factor in poor coverage - in rural areas, the costs of building and operating phone masts simply aren't covered by the revenue they generate.
Just as importantly, the plan is being developed in partnership with the mobile industry, and will take into account lessons learned from, inter alia, the UK Government’s failed Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP).
I say failed because MIP was supposed to have delivered nearly 600 new masts in rural areas by 2015, but in the event managed around a mere 50, only three of which are in Scotland.
The partnership approach in the Scottish Government plan is important because a factor in the failure of MIP, at least according to some industry insiders, is that it was initially designed on the back of a fag packet without any consultation with industry, because a minister needed something eye-catching to announce at a party conference.
That sounds plausible: those who haven't worked in or with government often think that the TV series "The Thick of It" is a work of pure fiction; but some of us know it's actually a drama-documentary, with the names changed to protect those in receipt of a "not proven" verdict.
All this suggests that the Scottish Government "gets" the need to improve digital connectivity in our rural areas, and is prepared to put its money where its mouth is.
It's really quite hard to think of anything that it could have done that isn't addressed in the plan, given that its powers are limited, as most of the regulations governing telecoms are reserved to Westminster.
But that's another story.
- Marshall Cooke specialises in political and regulatory affairs, policy research, crisis management, and strategic communications. To find out more about how we could help you, please visit our website.