Vodafone UK Name 7 New Rural Towns for OpenRAN 4G Network

Mobile operator Vodafone has today named some of the first rural towns in the UK to benefit from their planned rollout of 4G and 5G OpenRAN (O-RAN) technology, which is set to reach a total of 2,500 sites by the end of 2027 (here). The named communities have “traditionally struggled to receive good quality … mobile coverage“.

Just to recap. If a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) wants to buy new network kit today then they can usually only choose from a handful of big suppliers (Nokia, Ericsson etc.). The O-RAN approach seeks to standardise the design and functionality of such kit and software, thus increasing the number of companies able to supply them via vendor-neutral hardware and software-defined technology.

Vodafone has already conducted a number of limited trials and wider O-RAN deployments, such as at Cornwall’s Fistral Beach and St Keverne last summer. But the biggest one so far occurred in January 2022, when the operator switched on the UK’s first live – at scale – O-RAN site to carry 5G (mobile broadband) traffic in the Somerset city of Bath (here).

Today those early builds have been followed by further deployments across Morehampton, Lifton, Selborne, Pendine, Halkyn, Bradfield and Middleton-in-Teesdale in Devon, Hampshire, Wales, Yorkshire and County Durham. “These areas, which have traditionally struggled to receive good quality 4G mobile coverage from any network, now have a reliable 4G network,” said Vodafone.

Andrea Donà, Vodafone UKs Chief Network Officer, said:

“This new technology is helping us to deliver 4G coverage to new areas. With OpenRAN, we can bring 4G coverage to some of our most remote and rural communities for the first time, helping to give more people a digital connection and closing the digital divide.

As part of our network modernisation programme, we will continue to invest in our network across the UK to ensure it continues to benefit from our best network.”

Julia Lopez, UK Digital Infrastructure Minister, said:

“Any improvement to mobile coverage is good news but Vodafone’s pioneering use of this cutting-edge technology is particularly welcome.

The adoption of Open RAN is crucial to our plans to reduce the UK’s reliance on just a handful of suppliers building and maintaining our telecoms networks, and we encourage other operators to follow Vodafone’s lead and roll out this technology as soon as possible.”

Sadly, the operator doesn’t say exactly what kit they’ve deployed, although they did previously confirm that new OpenRAN based 4G and 5G antennas from both Samsung and NEC would start to be deployed from mid-2022. The hope is that this transition will be seamless for consumers, and they should only notice the positives of better performance and coverage. But in other areas there may be little difference, from the end-user’s perspective.

All of this is also intended to complement Vodafone’s plan retire their “legacy” 3G network from 2023 onwards (here), which will see the associated spectrum being repurposed to boost 4G and 5G performance. We should add that most of the first areas to benefit from the new O-RAN network will be in rural Wales and South West England.