O2 expanding UK network by 1500 sites in 2010

The expansion is to address known issues with O2's network coverage, and also build extra capacity and headroom for mobile data - allowing for the huge increases in mobile data usage from devices like the iPhone.

200 sites are destined for London, with 40 going live by Christmas this year. The nationwide network plan will build capacity throughout the country and cost O2 hundreds of millions of pounds.

Derek McManus, Chief Technology Officer for O2 in the UK said: “Anticipating growth in demand for mobile services, we have quarter on quarter increased investment in our voice and data networks. Our £500m investment over the last two years has enabled us to offer our customers the best products in the world, including the Apple iPhone and Palm Pre.

“In the past 12 months the mobile industry has seen an unprecedented change in demand. The introduction of world-class devices, in combination with a wide variety of data applications, has brought about a dramatic change in customer behaviour and created an exponential demand on mobile data networks. To put this in context, watching a YouTube video on a smartphone can use the same capacity on the network as sending 500,000 text messages simultaneously.

“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.”