O2 calls on Virgin Media Business for backhaul

UK operator O2, the British arm of Spanish operator group Telefónica, has selected Virgin Media Business to boost its backhaul capacity ahead of the launch of its LTE services this summer.

As part of a ten year deal, Virgin Media Business will connect base stations to its fibre network via a high capacity ethernet service, providing increased backhaul to feed higher speed data services for O2 customers.

The mobile backhaul network will provide Telefonica with the extra capacity it needs to satisfy increasing demand for mobile data from customers, the operator said. Each one of the high speed links will deliver speeds of 1Gbps between cell site and their aggregation network.

“Over the past five years we’ve seen huge growth in demand for mobile data as the number of consumers using smartphones and tablets has increased,” said Adrian Di Meo, CTO at Telefonica UK.

“With our 4G network launching this summer, data growth will only continue to rise and this new fibre agreement with Virgin Media Business will give us the rock solid foundation we need and help us deliver a great network experience for our customers.”

George Wareing, director of mobile and broadcast, Virgin Media Business  added that over the last two years, the firm has secured mobile backhaul contracts with all four of the UK’s major mobile network operators.

“It’s a sign that the backhaul market is moving extremely quickly and thanks to the speed and resilience of our fibre network, we’ve been able to make the most of that opportunity. By working closely in partnership with mobile operators we’ve been able to develop and deploy innovative and unique technologies that enable Sync–E as standard.”