Virgin Media O2 Update on Rural UK 4G and 5G Progress in 2021
Mobile operator O2 (VMO2) has today informed us that they’ve upgraded 2,876 locations in small towns and hamlets with 4G this year, and increased 4G network capacity in 178,500 postcodes across the UK. The network provider has also rolled out 5G in a total of 53 smaller towns and hamlets, in addition to urban areas.
Some of this expansion will reflect commercial coverage, but other parts probably flow from the joint £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) industry project with Three UK, Vodafone and EE (BT), which aims to push geographic 4G coverage to 95% from any one operator by the end of 2025 (here); or 84% for all operators (i.e. geographic areas where you’ll be able to take 4G from all four operators).
Ofcom this week reported (here) that between 79% to 86% of the UK’s landmass can access a 4G network if you look across all operators (up slightly from 79% to 85% last year), with O2 seeing geographic 4G coverage of 98% in urban areas and just 72% in rural ones. Sadly, O2’s rural coverage was less than that of EE (81%), Vodafone (76%) and Three UK (75%).
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 and Linkedin.
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Seemingly standard question from me…
Is there a list of O2’s claimed masts/places that have been upgraded “with 4G this year, and increased 4G network capacity in 178,500 postcodes”
Stats from providers are great, but I want them to provide actual real evidence of a list of places
I seen one person kicking off on Twitter because he was getting O2 5G signal but it wasn’t showing on the coverage map.
I’d love 5G to just appear for me
Unfortunately after the MNOs switch on a new cell site, they don’t update the maps straight away. It’s something line once a month.
People shouldn’t rely on the maps from the four MNOs.
I prefer apps like rootmetrics & nperf.
Crowd sourced data is more accurate!
If only the MNOs released a list of new locations for us!
Isn’t it also true that not all Virgin Mobile VMNO, phones are on VMO2 network? The coverage change is meaningless for some of their customers who are in coverage holes with EE or Vodaphone.
No phones on Virgin are on O2…. They are all being switched from EE to Vodafone so eventually all will be on Vodafone.
The signal on my Virgin Mobile has crashed during the past two weeks or so, to one bar or even Zero bars
That would be the norm for Vodaphone and 02 in my area
3 is also hopeless leaving the only other option EE with 100% coverage
That’s because Virgin mobile are switching everyone onto Vodafone
They tried here for a 4G mast in October sadly rejected at planning stage,not sure how it’s going pan out for some areas, which can’t get planning approval.