O2 UK came in for a lot of criticism over its network coverage in London last year, so much so that CEO Ronan Dunne was forced to issue an apology to customers. Things should hopefully be much better now following the completion of a network analysis, optimization and base station upgrade programme carried out by Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and O2 across London. 

 “O2 is the home of the smartphone in the UK, offering more applications and handling more and more data traffic. There is unprecedented demand on mobile networks, particularly in dense urban areas,” says O2 UK head of technology, Nigel Purdy. “Nokia Siemens Networks reacted swiftly to understand the challenges being placed on our network, and then implemented an effective upgrade to enhance the smartphone experience for our customers. This has resulted in a better use of network resources, minimized traffic loss and enhanced the experience of smartphone users.”

Working with O2, NSN has used its methodology to monitor and analyze the data and signaling behaviour of different smart devices connected to the mobile network. The methodology provides information on the impact of these devices on different network elements. This insight, combined with traffic growth forecasts, was used to establish a capacity improvement project, upgrading only the network elements and modules identified as bottlenecks for current and future performance within O2’s London network.

The upgrade included enhancing the signalling capacity of the network, as well as modernizing the network with NSN’s Flexi Multiradio Base Stations. These have been combined with NSN’s High-Performance Site Solution, that increases network capacity by doubling the number of mobile sectors from three to six in each base station’s area of coverage.
The upgrade also helps conserve smartphone battery life while decreasing signalling load on the network. NSN says it is the only mobile network equipment supplier to have successfully implemented a technology that achieves such benefits.