Ericsson to Power Most of Virgin Media O2’s UK 5G Network in New Five-Year Deal

Overview

• Virgin Media O2, in a Tuesday announcement, signed new deals with Ericsson and Nokia to modernize its UK radio access network under its Mobile Transformation Plan.
• Ericsson secured a five-year extension as primary RAN partner and will power the majority of the nationwide radio network, a deal worth several hundred million euros to the supplier.
• Nokia won a major multi-year deployment using its AirScale portfolio, adding Massive MIMO radios and new baseband platforms to boost coverage, capacity, and user speeds.
• The upgrades target mid-band spectrum bought in 2025 and add Massive MIMO, which uses many antenna elements to handle more data per site in crowded locations like stations and stadiums.
• AI-driven software will tune the network in real time, cut energy use, and support features such as 5G Standalone, Cloud RAN, and future 5G-Advanced, with VMO2 saying 5G SA now reaches about 87% of the UK population.