O2will build 1,500 network sites
across the UK next year, with 200 sites planned for London
alone.
The company also plans to upgrade its radio network. Of the 200
London sites, 40 are expected to be live by Christmas this
year.
O2's 3G network covers 84% of the population, but it says it
expects
demand for mobile services to grow.
Chief technology officer Derek McManus said, "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,"
Derek McManus added.