Having launched its 5G offering last October, the next phase of O2 UK’s 5G rollout will focus on the west of the country, with Ericsson as a key partner.

Manchester, Liverpool and Cardiff will be among the cities to be upgraded to super-duper O2 5G, using only the shiniest Ericsson kit and software. This will include new multiband and wide-band 5G radios as well as new 5G-optimized basebands

“We are pleased to be moving forward with Ericsson as one of our primary vendors for our 5G rollout,” said Brendan O’Reilly, CTO, O2. “Telecommunications has never been more important in keeping the country connected, and we look forward to bringing the enhanced capabilities of 5G to our customers.”

“5G will be crucial for the UK’s economic recovery and underpin its digital future,” said Arun Bansal, President of Europe and Latin America, and recently promoted to EVP, at Ericsson. “We are committed to ensuring that the UK achieves its gigabit connectivity targets so that enterprises and society at large benefit from high quality connectivity. We are delighted to be continuing our long-term partnership with O2 with this 5G network evolution.”

The philanthropic angle is a bit of a reach, but this definitely represents another handy bit of business for a company that has been having a good run recently, especially in the light of the Virgin move. O2 UK’s other RAN vendor is Nokia and nothing in this announcement tells us anything about possible market share shifts, but it will be interesting to see if there is an equivalent bulletin from Nokia.