Alongside the previously announced £11bn investment into the UK’s 5G infrastructure, VodafoneThree has shared more information on its post-merger roadmap, with work already underway to integrate the Three and Vodafone networks into one entity.
The new company will operate a multi-brand mobile strategy in consumer with Vodafone, Three, VOXI, SMARTY and Talkmobile remaining. Vodafone will be the only brand for business customers.
Over the next 12 months, VodafoneThree will bring Three’s mobile broadband (Fixed Wireless Access1) together with Vodafone’s full fibre into one home broadband portfolio, under the Vodafone brand.
VodafoneThree, plans to reach 99.95% 5G Standalone (5G SA) population coverage by 2034. The 5G SA build plan will be front-loaded so that by the end of the third year it will hit 90% population coverage from a current baseline of 47%.
It states that in one year, up to 50 million people will have access to VodafoneThree’s fastest 5G speeds.
Within two weeks, through the sharing of combined spectrum, seven million Three and SMARTY customers will receive a 4G boost of up to 20%.
Within a few months, 27 million Vodafone and Three mobile customers will start to benefit from access to roam on each other’s networks at no extra cost. It will happen automatically. By the end of the year this will remove a total of 16,500 sq/km of not spots with the first sites already having been turned on.
By this time next year, VodafoneThree will launch beta trials on space-based satellite mobile network through Vodafone’s partnership with AST Space Mobile.
Within two years the company will open two new customer care centres in Belfast and Sheffield, bringing 400 sales and customer service roles back to the UK, alongside the existing call centres in Stoke and Glasgow.
VodafoneThree states that the deployment of 5G SA will lead to thousands more jobs in engineering, construction, and maintenance of telecom towers, fibre optics, and base stations. Over the entire eight-year build period, it believes it will create and sustain demand for, on average, 9,000 jobs, with peak investment years seeing as many as 13,000 jobs created across the UK (74% outside London and the south east).
By consolidating networks, VodafoneThree’s energy consumption will be around 31% lower than it would have been as two separate networks. In addition, VodafoneThree will reduce emissions from operations to net zero by 2027 and look to achieve the same across the full value chain by 2040.
Max Taylor, CEO, VodafoneThree: “A new era of connectivity has begun. We will connect every nation, every community, in every corner of the UK. We will build the UK’s best 5G network with an unprecedented £11bn privately funded infrastructure project, laying the digital foundation for our country’s growth ambitions.
“Benefits for our 27 million mobile customers will start within months, with access to roam across both networks at no extra cost. From big cities to small towns, and everywhere in between, our mission is to build the UK’s best network”.