Virgin Media O2 Sign Nokia and Ericsson Deals to Upgrade UK 5G Mobile Network

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has this morning announced that they’ve signed new multi-year agreements with their strategic partners Ericsson and Nokia to upgrade their Radio Access Network (RAN). The move will result in “thousands of mobile sites” across the UK being upgraded to support their latest 5G Standalone (5G+) technology for faster mobile broadband speeds.

According to the announcement, the upgrades will touch the “majority” of O2’s RAN with new radios and baseband equipment, boosting coverage, capacity (performance) and reliability. The operator’s new 5G+ network is now live across an overall total of more than 700 locations (over 70% of the UK’s population), so this deal is clearly aimed at spreading that across most of the rest of their infrastructure. Existing 4G services are also set to benefit from the extra capacity.

Upgrades are already said to be underway across cities, towns and rural communities, with the company stressing how they’re “focused on improving connectivity in high-demand locations such as transport hubs, stadiums and city centres, as well as along major roads and railways“.

O2 also intends to deploy more energy-efficient equipment and AI software, which it can use to optimise network performance in real time, reducing energy consumption while delivering a more consistent experience for customers. In addition, the operator will shift to multiband radios, which should deliver significant operational and environmental benefits by replacing multiple radios per site, simplifying deployment and acquisition while reducing energy consumption.

Jeanie York, Chief Technology Officer at VMO2, said:

“Our Mobile Transformation Plan is delivering a step-change in network performance for our customers. These new long-term agreements with Ericsson and Nokia are a major milestone in that journey, helping us to significantly boost capacity, improve coverage and enhance reliability right across the UK.

Demand for mobile data continues to grow at pace and we are focused on investing in the infrastructure needed to deliver a faster, more resilient network that can keep up with our customers’ expectations. Last year, we added one Tbps [Terabits per second] of capacity to our network, and we plan to add more than double that this year as we build the UK’s most reliable mobile network.”

One thing that VMO2’s official press release doesn’t state is how much of their network will now be split between Nokia and Ericsson’s kit. But Ericsson does separately state that the deal means they will now “power the majority of the UK service provider’s nationwide UK radio network” (i.e. they’ve significantly increased their RAN footprint within VMO2).

Ericsson said they intend to deploy a wide range of Ericsson Radio System products, including advanced and energy-efficient multiband Massive MIMO radios – such as the AIR 3229 and the triple-band Radio 4486 – at both new and existing locations.

Patrick Johansson, Head of Ericsson Europe, Middle East and Africa, said:

“Virgin Media O2 is a close and trusted customer and partner of Ericsson’s. That trust is reflected in the RAN footprint increase in this partnership extension where Ericsson will power the majority of Virgin Media O2’s radio network. We are proud to partner with Virgin Media O2 and will work closely with the company to realize its Mobile Transformation Plan.”

Mark Atkinson, Head of RAN at Nokia, said:

“We are delighted to deepen our longstanding partnership with Virgin Media O2 through this important new 5G RAN deal. Our AirScale portfolio is designed to deliver the performance, efficiency, and flexibility required for the UK’s future connectivity needs. We look forward to supporting Virgin Media O2 in building one of the most advanced and reliable 5G Advanced networks in the country.”

Just for some context. 5G+ (Standalone) technology offers a pure end-to-end 5G network that can deliver ultra-low latency times, greater energy efficiency, better speeds (particularly uploads), network slicing, improved support for IoT devices, increased reliability and security etc. By comparison, early 5G networks used a Non-Standalone (NSA) approach, which was hobbled by being partly reliant upon older and slower 4G infrastructure.

All of this should bode well for the future performance of O2’s mobile broadband network, which has tended to be beaten by their rivals in most of the independent performance surveys we’ve covered. However, we may well see that situation change over the next few years, although it should be remembered that both EE (BT) and Vodafone (VodafoneThree) are also busy upgrading their networks using similar technologies.