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Vodafone Website

Vodafone has 19.7% share in the UK mobile phone market and is the 3rd largest of the mobile phone companies. Together with O2 it was one of the original mobile network operators in the UK. It operated part of the 900MHz band for their 2G coverage. It purchased a significant amount of 3G frequency bandwidth and the largest amount of 4G frequency spectrum; also the largest amount of 3.4GHz frequency in the 5G auction. Over the years it has accumulated a large amount of spectrum within which to operate it's business. This may be a sound business principal as frequency spectrum is a scarce resource.

The frequencies that Vodafone use are :

800MHz	Band 20	4G
900MHz	Band 8	2G + 3G
1400MHzSDL	Band 32	4G
1800MHz	Band 3	2G
2100MHz	Band 1	3G
2600MHzFDD	Band 7	4G
2600MHzTDD	Band 38	4G
3400MHz	Band 78	5G
3600MHz	Band 77	5G

2G Vodafone operates a 2G network that covers much of the UK. This uses the 900MHz and 1800MHz frequencies. Vodafone plan to switch off their 2G network at the end of 2030, as will the other networks. However the 2G network is still used and the switch off will be troublesome.

3G Vodafone switched off their 3G network at the end of 2024, although there is still some residual 3G in remote areas. They plan to reuse the frequencies to enhance their 4G / 5G offering.

4G The 4G coverage is mainly standard 4G but it is building up 4G+ into the larger UK cities,including London, Birmingham and Manchester, and indeed the wider population. Currently Vodafone download speeds, using 4G, are currently around 96Mbps. Counter intuitively this is the same as the average 5G download speed. For 4G Vodafone use 800MHz band to cover large areas with 4G. Additionally they use 2600MHz to provide more capacity to the 4G network. Vodafone also have available some frequency at 1400MHz SDL (Supplementary Download Link) It is designed to add capacity to 4G download speed. OgCOM have invited discussions regarding the use of this frequency band.

5G In the auctions to 5G frequency Vodafone purchased a significant amount of frequency between 3.4GHz and 3.8GHz. This is ideal to provide capacity over busy areas. However Vodafone did not purchase any frequency at the 700MHz range that will be used by the other mobile operators to cover larger areas. Hence they currently cannot offer the same 5G coverage of the other operators. Vodafone plan to use 900MHz, re-farmed from 3G, frequency for this purpose.

Vodafone as a company have expanded from a mobile operator to growing broadband business, leasing fibre lines from OpenReach. They have around 5% of UK broadband customers. They claim to be able to offer 47% of the UK population Vodafone Broadband. They have a presence on the High Street, selling home broadband, mobile phones, mobile routers and data connections (SIMs) to their network.