O2 to invest heavily in better mobile broadband coverage

With Orange and 3 currently fighting over who's got the biggest mobile broadband network, O2 has announced that it will invest 'hundreds of millions' in improving its mobile broadband coverage.

The company announced today that it intends to build or upgrade 1,500 base stations across the UK in order to "build significant headroom for mobile data". The roll-out will begin immediately, including 200 sites in London, 40 of which will be live by Christmas this year.

O2 was threatened with a £40m fine by Ofcom in early 2008 for not achieving the level of mobile broadband coverage required by the terms of its 3G licence. The company improved the situation, bringing its coverage up to 84 per cent, although that still leaves it ranked as the UK operator with the least coverage, well behind Orange and 3 which boast over 90 per cent.

"In the past 12 months the mobile industry has seen an unprecedented change in demand," commented O2's chief technology officer Derek McManus. "We are now aggressively accelerating our network growth programme to ensure we have significant headroom for the future and retain our focus on being number one for customer satisfaction."

O2 also signed a mast-sharing agreement with Vodafone in March this year which will extend its 3G coverage.