UK Mobile Operator O2 Says iPhone Apps are Hurting Their Network

By on Jan 3, 2010 at 10:49 am

In the UK, O2 has been having problems with the huge amount of data being schlepped around the network by iPhones. O2 CEO Ronan Dunne told the Financial Times that performance of the O2 network had been disappointing since this summer and that the company was trying to cope with the increasing number of mobile apps running on devices such as the iPhone. TUAW reported a multi-day data outage that affected O2 users just a few weeks ago.

Most of the issues have been confined to London, so the company is installing 200 additional base stations to support the increased levels of traffic. Dunne also noted that the company is working with Apple, RIM, and other handset manufacturers to learn more about which applications are causing the heavy demands on the O2 network. O2 has been working with Nokia Siemens Networks to modify the network infrastructure to better handle the combination of voice and data traffic.

While trying to iron out these issues, it appears that O2′s parent company, Telefonica, is making moves that could place further demands on the network. Telefonica purchased mobile VoIP company Jajah to add to O2′s portfolio of services, and VoIP services are notorious devourers of bandwidth.

In the United States, Verizon can smirk about AT&T’s network issues, but O2′s problems point out that no mobile operator is immune from the bandwidth-eating apps that are popular on the iPhone platform.

[TechWorld]

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  • johnny

    aaaawwwww!!!! how awful!!! sounds like ATT crybabing about iphones are supressing the network oh boo hoo booo!!!! well, I sure you knew that before you even sold the first iphone in the UK and I blae the CEO who is looking just at the profits like ATT which is not wrong but not upgrading the network when needed and knew that it was needed before doling out all those iphone is ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!

  • Magnus

    Hmm. I found the article rather positive and not whining. At least they’re doing something about it. The addition of VoIP service is very progressive. These guys see the writing on the wall that VoIP could very well be the way of the future for voice and that burdens the data side of their network rather than the voice infrastructure. This is greater evidence of forward-planning than most, certainly more so than AT&T, have demonstrated.

  • Jay Arr

    Message from consumer to O2 and all the other networks: Get your networks up to speed. This may be a problem now, but it is not going away anytime soon. This is a challenge to match the demand for speed and volume of data. The better prepared networks will win. Besides I have very little sympathy for wireless companies. If they spent less on advertising and more on network buildout, we would not have the problems they complain about.

  • R N

    It is so easy to blame the network. The demand for Iphone and Smartphone Aps drastically increased during the past couple of years that no operator no matter how much money they need to spend can cope with it. Countries like US & Europe can not just put cell sites in a couple of months time since there are a lot of zoning regulations and permits that need to be followed. Some communities even rejects the proposal of having a tower in their neighborhood but complain about their cellphone service. Planning to activation of a new site in the US already takes an average of 2 years from start to finish. If operators do not take advantage of the growing demand, they can not make any money to build the necessary infrastructure.