Suffolk’s mobile phone “not-spots” have leapt to the top of a nationwide survey by businesses highlighting the problems they faced in trying to get a signal.

The British Chambers of Commerce launched a national “No More Not-Spots” campaign last month because of the problems its members faced while trying to do business while out of their offices.

The Suffolk Chamber had already been campaigning on this – and worked with the EADT last year when we produced a map of Suffolk showing what mobile phone coverage was like across the county.

The new national survey has so far attracted 400 responses, with 70 of them – 18% of the national total – coming from Suffolk.

Although this is very early days in the survey, a spokesman for the Suffolk Chamber said this showed a keen interest in the subject from businesses in the area.

He said: “The high response rate from Suffolk to the No More Not-Spot campaign shows just how widespread a problem this is for the county’s businesses and residents.

“Thanks are also due to the local media organisations, including the EADT, which have kindly given the campaign such great coverage over its first few weeks.

“We will soon be analysing the initial Suffolk data to start mapping the county’s not-spots – giving us a clearer view of the problem areas.

“We will use this intelligence to start engaging with the mobile network operators and others to start addressing these problem locations.”

Although there has been an encouraging initial response to the BCC survey from Suffolk, more information from more people is needed before an accurate map of not-spots in the region could be created.

The spokesman said: “We still need much more information, so we are urging Suffolk businesses and residents to continue reporting their not-spots and sharing the details with us on Twitter by using hashtag #ShareYourNotSpots and tagging @suffolkchamber and @EADT24.”

The national BCC is expected to publish more data later this month which should allow more work to be done on identifying specific areas with poor signals – allowing the organisation to pressure mobile firms to improve coverage.