O2 says AI software lifted 5G capacity by up to 20% at a busy London site
A live trial with Nokia at Paddington let one O2 site carry more data on the same spectrum and equipment, which is the most expensive part of running a mobile network.
By Daily Oracles News Team2 min read
O2 has run artificial intelligence software on part of its live 5G network for the first time, and says it allowed one of its busiest London sites to carry up to about a fifth more data without any extra spectrum or hardware.
The trial, carried out with the Finnish equipment maker Nokia, took place at O2's high-capacity site at Paddington, one of the capital's main rail hubs. Virgin Media O2, which owns the O2 brand, described it as the first live deployment of an AI-powered radio access network feature in the UK. The system served ordinary customers throughout.
What the software does
A mobile site divides its radio spectrum and capacity between the people connected to it. Normally the rules for doing that are set in advance and adjusted by engineers. The Nokia feature uses predictive AI to learn how demand at the site changes through the day and shifts radio resources automatically as conditions change.
According to the operator, the result was an improvement in spectral efficiency of up to approximately 20%, meaning more data was carried over the same airwaves. It also reported significant gains in speeds at peak times, with no loss of reliability for people connecting to the network. The figures are the company's own, and no independent assessment has been published.
Why capacity is the costly part
For mobile operators, spectrum is a scarce and expensive asset that is bought at auction from Ofcom, while adding capacity in a busy area usually means building more masts or small cells. Both take time and money, particularly in central London, where sites are hard to secure.
Software that gets more out of existing equipment offers a cheaper way to handle demand in crowded places such as stations, stadiums and city centres, which O2 has named as priority areas for its investment.
The Paddington trial forms part of O2's Mobile Transformation Plan, under which the company is spending £700m on its mobile network in 2026, the same as in 2025. The plan includes upgrading and adding masts, moving old 3G spectrum over to 4G and 5G, and rolling out more than 1,000 of its high-capacity Giga Sites. Nokia won a multi-year contract in March to supply radio equipment for the programme.
What comes next
O2 has not said when or where the feature will be switched on more widely. Its main rival is following a similar path: BT's EE has said it is working with Nokia and the chipmaker Nvidia to bring its first AI-based radio sites online in Birmingham during 2027. Results from a single site are a first step, and wider deployments will show how far the gains seen at Paddington carry across a whole network.
