Into a brick wall: mobile connectivity and the thermal efficiency of residential buildings

Seraphim Dempsey and Ben Mahon

33rd European Regional ITS Conference, Edinburgh, 2025: Digital innovation and transformation in uncertain times from International Telecommunications Society (ITS)

Abstract: Climate mitigation policies have resulted in increased rates of residential energy efficiency retrofitting. However, building materials with low thermal transmissivity often have higher radio signal attenuation rates which can reduce indoor service quality for mobile phone users. This paper empirically documents this phenomenon in Ireland by linking administrative data on Building Energy Ratings, with reports of in-home mobile quality of service (QoS) issues collected from a nationally representative survey on mobile consumer experiences in Q2 2022. Importantly, we consider local telecommunication infrastructure by exploiting rich market intelligence data from the National Regulatory Authority. This allows us to account for the quality of outdoor mobile coverage and active fixed line broadband connections at the household level. We find a positive association between living in areas with higher proportions of energy efficient homes and the probability of reporting an issue with indoor mobile phone signal. This highlights the importance of aligning energy efficiency policy with telecommunication policy to ensure future connectivity is safeguarded.

Keywords: mobile signal attenuation; residential energy efficiency; quality of service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L96 O13 O18 R28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/331265/1/ITS-E-2025-20.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:itse25:331265

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 33rd European Regional ITS Conference, Edinburgh, 2025: Digital innovation and transformation in uncertain times from International Telecommunications Society (ITS)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().