O2’s 4G Mobile Network Reaches 45 Percent of UK in 240 Towns and Cities

Mobile operator O2 has celebrated the first anniversary of their 4G (LTE at 800MHz) based Mobile Broadband network deployment by confirming that more than 240 towns and cities across the United Kingdom can now access the new service, representing a population coverage of 45% (up from 41% in April 2014).

The operator, which earlier last year won Ofcom’s mobile coverage obligation lot for the 800MHz radio spectrum band, intends to spend another £1.5bn upgrading their network over the next 3 years to ensure that 4G, 3G and 2G services are pushed out to cover 98% of the UK population indoors by 2017 (rising to 99% outdoor).

Derek McManus, COO of O2 (Telefónica UK), said:

“We have spent the past year rolling out our 4G network so we can connect customers to the products and services they are passionate about in today’s digital age. It’s been the fastest build of any new network in our history – just one year after launching 3G we had reached 16% of the UK population and, in the same timeframe, we already reach over 45% of the UK population with 4G.”

In addition, O2 states that a total of 5,400TB (Terabytes) of 4G data has been carried over their new network since last year’s launch and nearly 20% of all data used on O2’s multi-layered network is carried over 4G.

It’s important to note that O2 and Vodafone have a kind of network sharing agreement in place, which allows them to “pool the basic parts of their network infrastructure” in order to create one national grid that can support two independent and competing networks.