Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

Virgin Media O2 and Ontix Expand 4G Mobile Small Cells in Birmingham

Thursday, Jan 23rd, 2025 (8:33 am) - Score 640
Virgin-Media-O2-Ontix-Small-Cell-on-Street-Light-PR-090924

Mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) has continued with their effort to boost 4G mobile (mobile broadband) capacity across the UK, which today sees them working with Ontix to expand their roll-out of small cells into new areas of Birmingham – primarily around Soho Road and Handsworth.

Small cells are akin to mini shoebox sized mobile (radio) base stations, which have been designed to deliver limited coverage (usually up to around 100 metres) and thus tend to be more focused on busy urban areas and specific sites – it’s not uncommon to find these sitting on top of lampposts, CCTV poles or old payphone cubicles (i.e. they can be more cost-effective than building new street assets or trying to secure wayleaves on buildings etc.).

NOTE: The picture attached to this article depicts one of Ontix’s 4G small cells on a street light in a different part of the country.

The latest project follows similar small call deployments, including in the city centre, which were delivered by the two companies in recent years. In this case, five new small cells have been deployed around parts of Soho Road and Handsworth in order to help “boost mobile capacity in the local area and reduce network traffic at busy times“.

Advertisement

Steven Verigotta, Director of Radio & Mobile Backhaul Delivery at VMO2, said:

“Small cells are an effective way of increasing local network bandwidth and play an important role in allowing us to keep up with rising customer demand. We are proud to have delivered these new sites in Soho Road and Handsworth, which will unlock opportunities for local residents and businesses.

With upgrade programmes underway right across our network, we’re working hard to ensure our customers consistently receive an exceptional network experience wherever they are and even at the busiest times.”

Richard Williams, Director of Acquisition at Ontix, said:

“By deploying small cell connectivity, we aim to facilitate a new era of digital empowerment in these two communities. Through enhanced access to reliable and high-speed internet connectivity, residents will be better equipped to overcome barriers, achieve their goals, and fully participate in the digital economy. We are delighted to have worked with Virgin Media O2 to achieve this first-of-its-kind deployment, boosting digital opportunities where they’re needed most.”

All of this flows from an Open Access Agreement (OAA) with Birmingham City Council, which was signed in 2022 and allows network operators (inc. partners) to use council-owned assets, such as lampposts, to deploy new cellular infrastructure to improve digital connectivity across the city.

Share with Twitter
Share with Linkedin
Share with Facebook
Share with Reddit
Share with Pinterest
Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
5 Responses

Advertisement

  1. Avatar photo Ad47uk says:

    4G? I thought it was all about 5G and faster speeds.

    It is good that they are trying to get better 4G, since they have got rid of 3G,

    1. Avatar photo Terry Glidemore says:

      5G was a fad, only better than 4G if you are static.
      + Funnily enough the public didn’t want 25meter North Korean masts over looking their properties.
      Hopefully 6G doesn’t follow the obvious errors.

    2. Avatar photo Anon says:

      Terry, I recommend reading more about this because you’re getting a few things wrong:

      – With the exception of Three which is waiting for the merger with VF, all networks are expanding their 5G SA coverage. There’s proof of this on ispreview’s forums.

      – One of the benefits of 5G SA is the improved coverage. It’s not a revolution, but works better when signal is low, so I’m not sure where the “static” part comes from. There are also new features for the networks, which may not benefit you that much, but certainly benefits them (steering, slicing, etc).

      – 5G uses the same masts as 4G. The problem, which is not that hard to understand, is that data consumption keeps increasing and the long range bands we used for 2G can’t carry that much data… so we need to use shorter range bands, which have more capacity, and that requires a more dense network. 5G (or 6G) can’t break the laws of physics. Unless we all go back to phone calls only, the single cell tower somewhere no one sees approach is dead.

      – Small cells are part of the network density increase, but they have limited range and so only make sense in cities where each small cell will serve many users. In other areas, where population density is low, it doesn’t make financial sense to deploy them… not to mention that then the “public” doesn’t want a small cell from each network every 3 lampposts as that would be “over looking their properties”…

      So if anyone is expecting 6G to do miracles, then they’ll going to be disappointed. I’d try to learn about how networks work.

    3. Avatar photo Chris says:

      Ontix lists their small cells as being “5G ready”. I would imagine at this time O2 is simply focussing their 5G rollout on macrocells.

      5G can probably be added later on to sites like this either by a software update, or a small swap to one of the radio units

    4. Avatar photo Ad47uk says:

      5G was a fad? I was going to say it is the future, but 6G and what ever comes after will be, but at the moment, 5G is here and people who have 5G capable phones will use it, well most if it works.

      5G do seem to have signal problems, certainly indoors. The majority of people I know that have 5G seems to have problems with it and that is with all networks.

      I am in no rush to change to a 5G phone, mine is working fine and does what I need

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

NOTE: Your comment may not appear instantly (it may take several hours) due to static caching and moderation checks by the anti-spam system. Please be patient. We will reject comments that spam, troll, post via known fake IP/proxy servers or fall foul of our Online Safety and Content Policy.
Javascript must be enabled to post (most browsers do this automatically)

Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message. By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.

Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £23.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £25.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £25.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £19.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £19.00
300Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: First 3 Months Free
toob UK ISP Logo
toob £22.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £23.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6150)
  2. BT (3691)
  3. Politics (2777)
  4. Business (2481)
  5. Openreach (2446)
  6. Building Digital UK (2364)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2200)
  8. FTTC (2094)
  9. Statistics (1951)
  10. 4G (1856)
  11. Virgin Media (1811)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1615)
  13. Fibre Optic (1490)
  14. Wireless Internet (1477)
  15. 5G (1453)
Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon