Virgin Media O2 Boost 4G and 5G at Major UK Holiday Sites
Customers of mobile operator O2 (VMO2) may like to know that they’ve upgraded the capacity of their 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) network at almost 600 UK cell sites, which is part of their preparations for a “record staycation summer” (i.e. the sites are popular tourist destinations and seaside areas, such as Bognor Regis, Bath and Stirling).
The 4G boost at 600 cell sites should benefit people across a total of 31,300 UK postcodes. VMO2 has also continued to roll out its 5G network, focusing on strengthening its coverage in towns and cities while introducing the next generation network to tourist hotspots such as: Edinburgh Castle, Bournemouth Pier, Tynemouth King Edwards Bay and Llandudno West Shore.
Also benefitting from new outdoor 5G connectivity are a range of museums and galleries, including the V&A Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, the Mary Rose Museum, York Castle Museum and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
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Jeanie York, Chief Technology Officer at VMO2, said:
“After a year like no other, we know how important it has been to stay connected. That’s why we’re committed to providing our customers with reliable connectivity all across the UK – as shown by our £448m investment on newly released spectrum – to increase capacity in our network and power the technology of the future, as well as spearheading the Shared Rural Network.
Whether you’re a holidaymaker heading off for a sunny staycation, a rural business or someone living and working in a remote area, we’re doubling down on 4G to ensure network capacity is deployed where it’s needed most. The numbers speak for themselves, with over 31,300 postcodes receiving a 4G network upgrade this year, hundreds of tourist hotspots boosted and a real focus to improve our 5G experience where people need it most.”
The latest capacity upgrades follow a little over a month after rival operator, EE (BT), announced that they’d completed a similar upgrade (here). Sadly, neither operator supplied a full list of upgrade locations or stated precisely how much extra capacity had actually been added, or what other changes might have occurred.
As a side note, we think that O2 may need to be very careful about putting out such announcements under the new VMO2 company name, which is because it does risk cause some confusion for those on the Virgin Mobile platform who connect via an MVNO platform with Vodafone and not O2. There’s something to be said for keeping the Virgin name separate, until the two are fully combined, which is still a few years away yet.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This is good to see, but some upgrades in poor cities like Chester would be very welcome.
I wonder what they will eventually rename the company to as VMO2/Virgin Media O2 is too much.
I can confirm I have recently been picking up O2 5G in Bognor regis, Admittedly its very sparse but its there in places.
O2 need to increase 4G in London. In Kennington I only get 3G despite getting solid 4G on the other three networks!
Regarding the naming issue; aren’t some still on a MVNO agreement with EE too? I think some of my family are on those older SIMs, or have they all been quietly moved to Vodafone now?
Some of the current 3/4G customers will remain on EE unless they use a handset which has 5G capabilities, in which case they will be automatically migrated to the Vodafone network. New customers are being put on the Vodafone network by default however and the remaining of whom do not use a 5G phone will stay on EE until the end of 2021 when the contract expires.
Just to confuse matters further, my understanding is that only new and 5G Virgin Mobile customers are being put on the Vodafone network with existing 2G, 3G and 4G customers remaining on the EE network until the end of the year and perhaps beyond.
This is correct. The brand that was O2 is now called Virgin Media O2 until they work out a name that fits appropriate.