Vodafone Adds Five Southern Towns To 4G Network

Vodafone is adding Basingstoke, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Reading and Swindon to its 4G network, meaning that an additional one million people and 35,000 businesses can now receive LTE.

The five new towns and cities – all located in the south of England – will bring the total number of Vodafone 4G locations to 239, delivering superfast mobile broadband services to 500,000 subscribers.

“Mobile connectivity plays a vital role in keeping communities in touch and helping to support the local economy,” says Fergal Kelly, CTO at Vodafone UK. “Our network improvements will ensure thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of consumers in the south of England will have a better opportunity to take part in the growing smartphone revolution, whether they are at work, at home or on holiday.”

Vodafone 4G

However it is worth noting that Vodafone has not revealed too many specific locations among the 239 towns and cities, raising the possibility that it has bulked the list up by including multiple settlements within or alongside large conurbations. For example, Vodafone appears to count Brighton and Hove as separate locations despite their proximity and also distinguishes between Gateshead and Jarrow.

In contrast EE claims to have 215 towns and cities covered by its 4G network and to cover 72 percent of the UK population with LTE as it appears to be stricter about what constitutes a 4G settlement. Indeed, any of the locations EE claims is a 4G location must have at least 80 percent coverage before it can be considered fully connected.

O2 claims it has 191 towns and cities covered by its 4G network but has just 33 percent indoor coverage and 41 percent outdoors, making it likely it is bulking up this figure in a similar fashion to Vodafone.

4G rollout forms a significant part of Vodafone’s £1 billion investment into its UK network, which will see its 2G, 3G and 4G infrastructure upgraded and 150 new shops opened, creating 1,400 jobs. The Newbury, Berkshire based firm recently celebrated  the 30^th anniversary of the Vodafone brand and announced plans to invest £19 billion across all of its worldwide networks in the next two years.

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