Vodafone UK has announced major network improvements across Newcastle, bringing stronger indoor and outdoor coverage, and mobile internet services across its 3G and 4G networks. This is part of Vodafone’s approximate £2 billion investment across the UK in the last two years, which will help extend 3G and 4G mobile coverage to more than 98% of the Newcastle population.
As a consequence of the network improvements already undertaken by Vodafone over the last year, mobile data traffic in Newcastle has rocketed. Customers are now collectively using over two terabytes of data every day, which equates to everyone in St James’ Park, when full to capacity, streaming Cheryl’s latest single Crazy Stupid Love over ten times each.*
The upgrade forms part of Vodafone’s approximate £3 million daily nationwide network and service investment rolled out over the last two years. This investment is already benefitting customers in Newcastle, a fact endorsed by results from independent technology consultancy LCC, which show that Vodafone has unbeatable indoor and outdoor 4G coverage in the city**. In light of this, 4G data usage in Newcastle is growing month on month, and total data usage is now more than double what it was this time last year.
In addition, the recent strengthening of our 3G network across the city has already provided greater coverage, High Definition (HD) Voice technology for voice calls and faster mobile internet services to more consumers and businesses.
A snapshot of Vodafone in Newcastle:
- The data usage across Newcastle peaked at major sporting events over the last year, including key football matches such as the recent Newcastle United vs Manchester United Premier League game. Data usage on this day increased by over 20%; the equivalent of nearly 19,500 extra hours of web browsing.The average data traffic per week in Newcastle is equal to browsing the internet for over 600,000 hours*- that’s equivalent to someone surfing the web for nearly 70 years!Around 70% of the data traffic in Newcastle is now 4G data.Daily 4G data traffic in Newcastle now equals around 380,000* songs being streamed every day.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
- *based on the average song size being 4MB, average non HD film being 750MB and 1 hour of typical browsing equating to 10-25MB as collated by http://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/guides/broadband/guide-to-internet-data-usage
- **4G coverage assessed by LCC in November 2015 against key competitors with 4G coverage.
- Vodafone has expanded its ultrafast 4G coverage to 795 larger cities, towns and districts as well as thousands of smaller communities across the UK. For more information on our 4G coverage visit vodafone.co.uk/4g.
- Customers can check Vodafone’s current and planned coverage at http://www.vodafone.co.uk/our-network-and-coverage/uk-coverage-map/index.htm
- Coverage predictions are based on an assumption that Vodafone can obtain planning permission to build sites, access to land or buildings to place equipment and backhaul to connect sites.
- Vodafone 4G is typically 3.6 times faster than our 3G. Speeds vary and depend on coverage and demand. For more information visit vodafone.co.uk/4g
- 4G devices are available for review on request.
