Buildings are the problem
Buildings interfere with mobile signals. This is just fact.
Materials and infrastructure like steel, reinforced concrete, insulated wall systems, mechanical infrastructure, dense shelving and low-E/energy-efficient glass can weaken or distort signal indoors.
This means you get the same pattern repeatedly: devices drop to one bar or none, apps time out, scanners and sensors reconnect more than they should, and coverage becomes patchy across corridors, back-of-house areas, plant rooms, basements and aisles.
These issues don’t always show up as big failures. More often, they show up as constant small interruptions that slow people down and make digital tools less reliable.
The “silent harm” that rarely gets reported
The reason why indoor coverage problems have become so easy to ignore is because people adapt.
Customers rarely report it in a way that makes it visible. They just hit friction: loyalty apps won’t load, QR experiences freeze, digital coupons don’t activate and mobile checkouts stall. But they don’t usually label it as “poor indoor coverage”.
Staff do the same. They walk to windows, retry steps, switch to Wi-Fi where they can, avoid known dead zones, and build workarounds into daily routines. Over time, the issue gets mentioned less, but not because it’s fixed, but because everyone has learned to work around it.
That’s one of the key reasons why indoor coverage stays off the radar: the impact is real, but the feedback doesn’t travel very far.
When value is everywhere, but ownership is nowhere
Indoor mobile coverage often sits between teams.
IT may deal with the symptoms day to day, but the root cause is tied to the building. Yet estates may see it as a network issue. Some assume it’s the mobile operator’s job. In other cases, it bounces between landlords, tenants and suppliers.
When a problem affects lots of people, but no one clearly owns it, it rarely becomes urgent. Even when it affects operations and customer experience.
Indoor coverage is customer experience infrastructure
Customers now experience businesses through their phones, and their phones experience the business through the building.
If a customer can’t keep a connection inside your walls, the phone-led parts of the experience don’t work properly. And when those fail, customers tend to blame the brand, not the building.
This is why indoor public mobile enhancement isn’t just a technical upgrade. It supports the services customers expect to work smoothly the moment they step inside.
A more deliberate wireless foundation
Organisations are relying more and more on connected devices, connected workflows and connected customer journeys. In that reality, patchy indoor mobile coverage becomes a direct barrier to getting things done.
The way to think about this is simple: different users rely on different layers of connectivity. Public mobile networks serve customers, visitors and BYOD users. Wi-Fi supports general access and productivity. Each has a role, and each depends on the building supporting reliable coverage where it’s needed.
When indoor coverage is left to chance, these layers won’t perform consistently across the spaces that matter most. When it’s planned properly, connectivity can be matched to how the building is actually used, looking at where people move, where work happens, and where digital services are expected to run without interruption.
A simple question worth asking
Indoor mobile coverage rarely gets attention when it’s working well. It usually only gets noticed when it isn’t.
But as more everyday work and more customer interactions depend on staying connected indoors, this needs to be raised up the priority ladder.
Essentially, you’re offering your customers bad service, when you don’t have to. Isn’t that worth looking at?
If you’d like to find out more about improving your indoor mobile coverage, then talk to us at TrellisWorks. We are ready to help.
