Nokia Siemens Networks To Upgrade O2 Network

Nokia Siemens Networks has announced that it has signed a three year modernisation contract to upgrade O2’s mobile network in the south of England.

The deal with O2’s parent, the Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica, will see Nokia Siemens Networks modernise O2’s radio network in order to expand capacity, coverage and performance using the vendor’s Flexi Multiradio Base Station and Radio Network Controller.

The deal means Nokia Siemens Networks will provide approximately two-thirds of O2’s 3G access network in the UK, covering the south of England.

Data Demand

“Smartphone users want to stay connected to the network all the time, and are increasingly demanding high-speed data services,” said Nigel Purdy, chief technology officer of O2 UK. “Nokia Siemens Networks fully understands our requirements to fulfil the expectations of our smartphone customers. We have a long-standing relationship with the company and based on its past track record, we rely on its expertise in expanding and modernising our 3G network to deliver the best possible experience to our customers.”

“We are committed to providing our radio equipment to power O2’s great network and increasing coverage and capacity for Telefónica O2 UK,” said Rob Stent, head of customer team for Telefónica O2 UK and Ireland at Nokia Siemens Networks. “Our Flexi Multiradio Base Station is recognised as the market leader. The hardware being delivered now, as well as providing O2 customers with faster data rates and better connectivity, will also allow support for future LTE services with a simple software upgrade.”

Under the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks has supplied its energy-efficient, LTE-ready Flexi Multiradio Base Station, the latest Radio Network Controller and its network management system NetAct for efficient configuration, optimising and monitoring of the network. The deal also covers services including network implementation, project management, advanced technical support and consultancy services to ensure rapid network deployment for O2 during 2011.

Network Issues

In the past, O2 has faced criticism from both users and the UK communication regulator Ofcom over its 3G coverage (compared to other UK operators).

Indeed, in 2008 Ofcom had threatened to reduce the duration of O2’s 3G license by four months, a sanction that Ofcom calculated would be equivalent to a financial penalty of at least £40 million. That was because O2 had failed to hit the coverage targets agreed when the licences were originally awarded.

“This announcement is absolutely unrelated,” an O2 spokesperson confirmed to eWEEK Europe UK. “We met our obligation to Ofcom (which was to build our 3G network to cover 80 percent of the population) by April 2008. Infact, since that time our 3G network has covered over 84 percent of the UK population.”

O2 also pledged in November 2009 to spend hundred of millions of pounds overhauling its mobile network in order to give it ‘significant headroom for mobile data’ and to meet the rising demand for mobile broadband.

But the stability of O2’s network was again called into question in December 2009, when it suffered a number of embarrassing network failures in London. The operator was forced to admit that the crash was caused by the data strain from the increasing use of smartphones.

O2 Response

“This is a business as usual vendor deployment,” said the O2 spokesperson. “Our new vendor announcements are not in response to any problems. The pressures we felt in London, where we see the highest concentration of smartphone users, occurred nearly 18 months ago. We acted quickly and deployed 40 new sites in London in December 2009 alone, with fantastic results. Independent testing by Metrico has since found us to have the fastest data speeds in 16 out of 20 cities in the UK.”

“We continually invest in enhancements to our mobile network,” O2 added. “Last year we spent £1 million a day, every day, on the network, and that investment will rise by a further 25 percent this year.”

“In 2010, we built 1,500 new sites across the UK, which puts us well ahead of the data curve. Separately, Ofcom recently concluded their ruling for UMTS900 spectrum in our favour. This new spectrum brings considerable capacity to O2 and better in-building coverage specifically,” O2 said. “Our strategy is to build a multi-layered, smart network, using several complementary technologies to offer the best experience to our customers – be it via 2G, 3G, 4G, hspa+ or Wi-Fi.”