O2 4G Coverage Expands To 13 UK Cities

O2 4G is now available in 13 major UK cities and an additional 120 surrounding towns, with the operator boasting it has achieved its 2013 coverage targets six weeks ahead of schedule.

The LTE service went live in August in Bradford, Leeds and London, but has expanded over the last eleven weeks to cover 17 million people, or more than a quarter of the UK population, with Edinburgh, Newcastle, Huddersfield and Rotherham the latest locations to be added to the network.

O2 4G coverage

O2 says the programme has been the fastest network rollout in its history and promises to continue to invest in its infrastructure. It claims it will spend £1.5 a million a day on upgrading its 2G and 3G networks as well as on the ongoing rollout of 4G, which will cover an additional three million people in the next three months.

However despite the progress that O2 claims to have made, coverage still lags well behind that of EE 4G, which launched ten months before any of its rivals, and now covers 131 UK towns and cities – a figure which is set to increase to 140 by the end of the year.

O2 is not just looking to catch up in terms of coverage, but also in terms of products, and last week it announced details of its mobile broadband plans for tablets and laptops.

Users can opt for a monthly contract costing £15 a month for 3GB or £25 for 5GB, although those who sign up for the latter will receive an additional 3GB for the lifetime of the tariff. Allowances can be topped up for £10 per gigabyte, while those who don’t want a contract can pay £30 for 5GB of data which expires after 90 days.

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