Virgin Media Business and Arqiva to Improve 4G Mobile in UK Cities

Cable operator Virgin Media Business has signed a new partnership with Arqiva that will help to improve the coverage and performance of 4G mobile connectivity in city centres across the United Kingdom, particularly in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford and Southampton.

Under the deal both partners will work together in order to help Mobile Network Operators (MNO), such as Three UK, BT, EE, Vodafone and O2, to deploy Small Cells from over 400,000 street assets, including lampposts and CCTV cameras, which will be supported by capacity delivered via Virgin’s high-capacity fixed line network.

Duncan Higgins, Marketing Director at VMB, said:

“Small cell technology is a key way of tackling network capacity in built-up areas for mobile operators. Increasingly people are using their mobile devices to download and stream videos; that’s why services like this are so important. By providing more capacity in city centres where we already have a large-scale fibre presence, we are able to provide a great service.”

Nicolas Ott, Managing Director of Telecoms at Arqiva, said:

“Regardless of network or consumer device, seamless and hassle-free connectivity is an absolute must. The challenge in dense urban areas is that buildings can block the signal and the higher volume of users can result in network congestion. Small cell technology is key to addressing these challenges, as already demonstrated in the USA and Asia.

Thanks to our partnership with Virgin Media Business, we are capable of providing Mobile Network Operators a one-stop-shop and end-to-end connectivity service across the largest possible geographic area. We are excited by the strong leading position we are creating that enables a rapid deployment of this technology in the UK market.”

The result, they claim, should be an end-to-end solution for small cell deployment; from design, through to installation and into in-life operation. The move is somewhat similar to the approach that Virgin and some other operators already take when deploying free public WiFi hotspots around cities.