O2 and Vodafone UK to Miss 98 Percent UK 4G Coverage Target for 2015

In an unsurprising development it looks as if Vodafone and O2 will not achieve their original target to roll-out 4G (LTE) based Mobile Broadband network connectivity to 98% of the United Kingdom’s population by the end of 2015, although the Government doesn’t expect it to be done until 2017 anyway.

The news is hardly surprising, not least because the operator with the most advanced deployment of 4G (plus nearly one year’s head-start on their rivals), EE, has already missed its original goal of putting the service within reach of 98% by the end of 2014. In fact EE only hit 90% last month and they might finally get close to 98% by the end of this year.

At the same time the most recent results from Vodafone reported that the operator had so far only managed to achieve a 4G outdoor population coverage of 68% (here), which is likely to be mirrored by O2 UK due to the presence of a network sharing deal (here). But Mobile News reports that indoor reception is even further behind at around 63%

Mind you the Government and Ofcom don’t officially expect the operators to achieve this target until the end of 2017 “at the latest” (here), so it’s perhaps more of a PR loss than a major setback and in any case EE will probably get there a fair bit before the deadline.

A Vodafone Spokesperson said:

“We recognise the importance of mobile connectivity which is why we spent more than £1 billion last year on our network across the country and will spend a similar amount this year. However, we are also very aware that in certain areas of the UK it may be more difficult to deliver the level of coverage our customers expect. This could be due to a number of reasons, such as the geography of the area and difficulties in finding sites following discussions with potential landlords.”

At this point it’s worth noting that O2 holds the official 4G coverage obligation lot for the 800MHz radio spectrum band (details), although they need not worrying because in reality Ofcom’s requirements for this are pretty weak.

For example the rule demands, “with 90% confidence“, that O2 be able to deliver “a sustained downlink speed of not less than 2Mbps when that network is lightly loaded” and bizarrely this can also be met by using “alternative mobile broadband technologies if they wish to” (it sounds as if they could probably use 3G to deliver the 4G obligation in some areas).

Since then mobile operators have also agreed with the government to improve their landmass (geographic) coverage (here) too, which will see voice and text (2G) coverage being boosted from 80% today to 90% by 2017 and 3G (data) coverage being pushed from 69% to 85% over the same period. Doing this is harder than the population goal, so the 2017 date sounds realistic.

Having said all that it’s worth considering the not insignificant injection of market confusion, particularly in regards to all those network sharing deals, that BT’s buy of EE and Three UK’s move to gobble O2 could have on the industry. Quite how all that will play out is as yet unclear.