Telefónica today announced the deployment of 4G across 1,000 new UK sites, making immediate moves to expand capacity following its successful acquisition of more 4G spectrum in Ofcom’s recent auction.
The decision followed successful Q1 results, in the UK alone, which saw net income increase by 7.4 percent year-on-year globally; total revenue increase by 2.9 percent to €1,586 million – and what it described as “robust” UK performance.
“We have delivered another solid quarter driven by our relentless focus on customers. We are growing top and bottom line in a very competitive market while maintaining the highest levels of customer loyalty and satisfaction in our sector,” Patricia Cobian, CFO for Telefónica UK, said.
Overall the network provider increased its total global revenue by 1.9 percent in organic growth, totalling just under €12,2million at the end of Q1. Total operating costs for the quarter increased by 1.4 percent to €1,181million.
As a result Telefónica invested £523.6million in Ofcom’s spectrum auction to obtain 40MHz of useable 4G spectrum (2.3GHz) and 40MHz of spectrum expected to be used in the launch of 5G (3.4GHz) networks.
Areas across the country to benefit include Leeds, Nottingham and London; with the Capital already utilising the network across 60 sites after the spectrum was activated.
“We know how important a fast and reliable connection is to our customers, which is why we’re putting our new 4G spectrum to use as quickly as possible,” Derek McManus, COO of O2, said. “We were able to switch on the first sites within 24 hours. Our swift deployment of new 4G spectrum will further enhance the O2 experience for all of our UK customers.”
The rollout plan puts enhancing performance on major transportation hubs in major cities as a priority, in addition to providing busy shopping areas with a fully functioning network; centres include Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford, where the public has been calling for an improved service.
In addition to the roll out at various new locations, the company has stated it continues to invest £2 million each day to enhance network experience for customers.
Data traffic continued to grow at elevated rates in mobile networks meanwhile, rising at an impressive 67 percent year-on-year for the quarter, driven by two levers: a growing customer base with data tariffs and growth in average data consumption, the company said.
“Average mobile data traffic per customer reached 2GB/month (+54 percent y-o-y) and reflected the transformation of the data offering, focused on increasing the weight of recurrent plans in both prepay and contract… and the incorporation of digital services such as video, cloud or music”.
