Building a superior network experience

£2 million. That’s how much we invest in our network daily, equivalent to approximately £700 million this year, using cutting-edge technology to keep you connected whenever you need it.

With mobile network demand reaching an all-time high, and with traffic more than doubling in the last five years, we want you to stay connected no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

Read on to find out how we’re helping our customers do just that.

We’re also proud to say our award-winning 4G mobile network currently covers over 99% of the UK population. As part of our £700m Mobile Transformation Plan, we’ve ensuring it is fit for the future and can keep up with increasing demand.

This year, we’ve already made significant upgrades to our mobile networks in Liverpool and Manchester, which is now providing faster and more reliable mobile services to residents and businesses in hundreds of postcodes. As the year goes on, we have big plans to upgrade more towns and cities. Watch this space.

Enhanced 4G and 5G network capacity means  improved mobile connectivity, making it easier for you to access essential online services, work remotely, stream content on the go and stay connected with friends and family.

Small cells are compact bits of radio infrastructure no bigger than a shoebox boosting mobile capacity and reducing network traffic in some of the county’s busiest areas. They’re also easily hidden in objects like streetlamps and telephone boxes.

Earlier this year, Plymouth benefitted from enhanced mobile connectivity when six high-capacity small cells went live across the city, in partnership with Ontix and powered by our existing fibre network. We plan to roll out more small cells before the end of 2025.

Our Mobile Transformation Plan will focus on investment in parts of the network that experience the highest levels of demand and areas where connectivity is most critical, finding innovative solutions to address persistent network pain points.

Stations and on trains polls as one of the top three locations where you want to see improvements, so we’re enhancing connectivity on the transport network.

We’re also strengthening coverage along motorways and major routes, ensuring consistent service for the two-thirds of Brits who rely on GPS maps when driving.

But it’s not just major cities and motorways. We’re also tackling long-term so-called “not-spots” – areas where mobile network coverage has been either completely or partially lacking – with innovative solutions such as satellite backhaul, helping to connect some of the most difficult-to-reach areas of the UK.

We’re also deploying Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) and dedicated networks to ensure uninterrupted connectivity for attendees at live events – another area where you’ve asked to see improvements.

For example, we recently improved connectivity at Manchester’s Heaton Park. The new site is delivering faster speeds, greater bandwidth and solid connectivity for visitors and the local community, ahead of a packed summer of events.

Our 3G network, first launched more than 20 years ago, today carries less than 3% of all network data – a figure that continues to fall. That’s why we’re continuing to decommission this legacy network, enabling us to move traffic on to faster, greener and more reliable 4G and 5G connectivity for you.

The switch-off of this older technology – agreed by the Government and all mobile network operators in 2021 – allows providers like us to reallocate mobile spectrum to more efficient 4G and 5G services and improve your experience with faster data speeds, more reliable streaming and higher-quality voice calls. Please note that if your phone shows a mix of 3G, 4G and 5G today, even if it displays a 3G icon most frequently, you don’t need to take any action.  During 2025 we’re strengthening our 4G signals, so you’ll connect to 3G less and less until we phase it out during 2025.

Our Mobile Transformation Plan also encompasses additional spectrum rollout and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI). Using AI will enable us to unlock further efficiencies that will be reinvested to improve your network experience.

2025 might be halfway done, but we’re just getting started…