Construction and Engineering Team at BTO advises Freshwave on a cutting-edge railway mobile connectivity project

A groundbreaking collaboration between NetworkRail and two telecoms companies, Neos Networks and Freshwave, is aimed at enhancing mobile network connectivity alongside Britain’s busiest railway lines.

The project, officially unveiled by the Department for Transport in June 2025, builds on the government’s Plan for Change, focused amongst others on improving Britain’s infrastructure with higher public and private investment. In line with those ambitions, the main goals of Project Reach will be improving passenger experience by tackling persistent connectivity blackspots on main railway lines across Britain and building a digital connectivity backbone fit for UK’s modern digital aspirations. Although the project is designed with railway users at heart, in the long term it will support the growing demand for connectivity dictated by rapid development of AI and other modern technologies, such as cloud and datacentre expansion. With the works commencing in the early months of 2026, the full roll out of Project Reach is planned by 2028.

The Project is based on a collaboration between Neos Networks and Freshwave, under the direction of Network Rail, the owner and infrastructure manager of majority of the railway network in Britain.

At its initial stages, Project Reach will see Neos Networks, a leading B2B telecoms provider, deploy 1,000 kilometres of ultrafast fibre optic cable along Britain’s East Coast Main Line (stretching from London King’s Cross to Newcastle), West Coast Main Line (from Birmingham to Manchester) and the Great Western Main Line (leading from London Paddington to Cardiff), with a future goal to expand its reach beyond 5,000 kilometres. By laying down a state-of-the-art fibre optic cable, and switching the current 48-count cable to its newer 432-count counterpart, Neos will tackle the persistent connectivity issues for rail users as well as facilitate usage of new technologies relying on improved connectivity, allowing Network Rail to provide faster and more reliable train services and improve safety for railway workers.

Further stages of the Project will see Freshwave, UK specialist connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider, resolving the issue of interrupted connectivity for rail users by tackling connectivity blackspots. Working closely with the mobile network operators, Freshwave will install mobile infrastructure to address the current signal blackspots in 57 tunnels and associated cuttings along the route. Those include the 4km-long Chipping Sodbury Tunnel near Bristol as well as the Copenhagen Tunnel outside of London King’s Cross station. Further, Freshwave partnered with the mobile network operators will bring 4G/5G indoor connectivity to 12 railway stations across the UK, with improvements to be seen at Birmingham New Street, Bristol Temple Meads, Edinburgh Waverley, Euston, Glasgow Central, King’s Cross, Leeds, Liverpool Lime Street, Liverpool Street, Manchester Picadilly, Paddington and Waterloo.

Our Construction and Engineering Team at BTO will advise Freshwave on the legal aspects of the project, liaising with key stakeholders and ensuring that the project progresses seamlessly across the borders. The team advising Freshwave will be led by Ian McCann and Keith Emmerson.

If you have any questions on this, or any similar projects from team BTO, contact imc@bto.co.uk or kem@bto.co.uk.

Julia Bak, Trainee Solicitor (Author of article): jba@bto.co.uk / 0141 221 8012

Ian McCann, Partner: imc@bto.co.uk / 0141 221 8012