Cornerstone
Project overview
As Oxfordshire County Council’s Digital Infrastructure Programme team, we are proud to play a key facilitation role in improving street-level mobile coverage through deploying Small Cells—a collaborative project designed to enhance mobile connectivity in Oxford’s busiest and most sensitive areas.
Working in partnership with Cornerstone (the infrastructure provider), Signify, Dense Air, and national mobile operators, we are helping to deliver compact, street-level infrastructure—known as small cells—on existing public assets such as lampposts and street furniture. These installations are designed to blend into the urban environment, preserving the city’s heritage while improving digital access.
- Partners: Cornerstone, Signify, Airspan, national mobile operators
- Council role: Local authority facilitator and enabler
- Funding: Commercially funded
- Timeline: Initial installations by 2025, with ongoing monitoring and evaluation
- Scalability: Potential to expand across Oxfordshire and similar urban centres
Our role as a local authority facilitator
As a local authority, we are uniquely positioned to enable the successful deployment of small cell infrastructure. Our Digital Infrastructure Programme team supports this work by:
- Identifying and prioritising suitable council-owned assets (e.g. streetlights, signage) for deployment
- Facilitating access and permissions to ensure timely installations
- Coordinating internal stakeholders across planning, conservation, and highways teams
- Streamlining planning and highways approvals to reduce delays
- Ensuring transparent communication with residents and stakeholders
- Providing feedback loops to refine deployment processes and improve future rollouts
This facilitation model reflects our commitment to enabling smarter, more connected communities while protecting the character and integrity of Oxford’s public spaces. By working closely with partners like Cornerstone, we are helping to shape a digital infrastructure that supports economic growth, digital inclusion, and sustainable urban development.
Objectives
Our role in this initiative is guided by a shared set of objectives:
- Enhance mobile signal in high-footfall areas, including visitor hubs, commercial zones, and known “not-spots”
- Support a scalable and visually sympathetic model for small cell deployment in heritage-sensitive locations
- Foster collaboration between local authorities and the digital infrastructure sector
- Streamline planning and installation by leveraging existing public infrastructure
- Gather insights and performance data to inform future rollout opportunities across the county