VM02 teams with Ericsson to grow UK’s 5G coverage

As part of the deal, the latest generation of Ericsson quad-technology baseband, multiband and recently launched 5G Massive MIMO radio AIR 3258 will be deployed across VM02’s network.

VM02 will also become one of the first Communications Service Providers (CSPs) in Europe to trial Ericsson’s Cloud RAN solution, which the Swedish radio giant claims offers “a seamless evolution to cloud-native technologies and open network architecture”.

The deployment of the latest products and solutions from the Ericsson Radio System portfolio will span all towns and cities in the UK that have 4G and 5G VM02 coverage including Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Oxford.

Jeanie York, chief technology officer at Virgin Media O2, said: “This multi-million pound investment in our network will mean our customers can benefit from more reliable and faster services at the same time as reducing overall carbon emissions. Building on our long-standing relationship with Ericsson allows us to deliver improvements quickly and efficiently, helping us move rapidly towards the future-proof networks our customers expect.”