Mobile network In 1981,
Racal Electronics Group won its bid for the private sector UK Cellular licence, and created Racal Telecomms Division. The same year, Racal formed a joint venture with
Millicom named 'Racal Vodafone'. The Vodafone name was first unveiled on 22 March 1984. Vodafone made the first cellular telephone call in the United Kingdom on 1 January 1985, from
St Katharine Docks to
Newbury, and launched the UK's first cellular network later that year. 'Vodapage' was launched two years later, providing 80% of the United Kingdom's population with a
paging service, and a service called 'Vodata' was also launched for voice and data. rising to 12 million in 2001. The first
3G voice call in the UK was made in April 2001 on the Vodafone UK network, with an initial network of 30 base stations in the
Thames Valley set for the commercial launch in 2002. That same month Vodafone launched
GPRS services. In 2003, Vodafone introduced the 'Speaking Phone', a phone for
blind and visually impaired users. Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G was launched in 2005, a data card that uses the network's 3G capabilities to connect laptop users to the internet. Vodafone UK won Mobile Retailer's 'National Retailer of the Year' in 2005 and was awarded 'Best Network' in the 2010 Mobile News and Mobile Awards. In May 2011, Vodafone and
Justgiving launched 'JustTextGiving', which allows mobile phone user to donate between £1 and £10 to a
registered charity using a
SMS message, which is paid for by the donor through
reverse SMS billing. Vodafone invested £5 million to ensure that charities do not incur any set-up costs, or commissions deducted from donations, ensuring that they receive 100% of donations and
Gift Aid. Vodafone and
O2 signed a deal in June 2012 which will see the two companies 'pool' their network technology, creating a single national grid of 18,500
transmitter sites. Both networks will continue to carry their own independent mobile spectrum. On 20 February 2013, Ofcom announced that Vodafone had been awarded spectrum in the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz bands for
4G LTE coverage, bidding around £790 million for the spectrum. The service became available to customers in London on 29 August, and will expand to a further twelve cities by the end of 2013. On 29 March 2018, following the release of
iOS 11.3, Vodafone launched
VoLTE (4G Calling) for
iPhone users, with devices from the
iPhone 6S to the
iPhone X being compatible. The feature had been active on some
Android phones from
Huawei,
Samsung Mobile and
Sony Mobile prior to its launch on
Apple Inc. devices. On 3 July 2019, Vodafone launched their
5G network in
Birmingham,
Bristol,
Cardiff,
Glasgow,
Manchester,
Liverpool and
London, with more towns and cities launching throughout 2019. In February 2024, Vodafone shut down their 3G network.
Fixed network On 1 April 2012, Vodafone agreed to a takeover of
Cable & Wireless Worldwide at a cost of just over £1 billion. The acquisition gave Vodafone access to its own
fixed line network, in addition to the already established mobile network, allowing the company to begin work on launching a variety of fixed line services to Enterprise customers in addition to the ex-CWW customers which it acquired during the initial takeover. Using this network, they launched home broadband brand Vodafone Connect in June 2015, originally for existing Vodafone mobile customers in areas like Manchester, Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey. Speeds could reach 76 Mbps. The company then opened its broadband service (
Vodafone Broadband) to the wider UK public on 12 October 2015. Plans to launch a UK television service were also developed, originally scheduled for spring 2015, but were subsequently put on hold. Vodafone partnered with
CityFibre to deliver
FTTP (Fibre to the Premises), with a rollout planned for mid-2018. By 2020, Vodafone was rolling out ultra-fast full fibre broadband in several UK cities with Openreach and CityFibre. Speeds reached up to 900Mbps in certain areas. By June 2022, Vodafone had become the UK’s largest full fibre broadband provider (in terms of homes able to access its full fibre service), overtaking BT. Later changes would add full fibre speeds (up to 2.2Gbps) under the “Vodafone Pro 2 Broadband” product name, which included new hardware like a WiFi 6E router. This has since been usurped by Vodafone’s Pro 3 (21), which utilises a WiFi 7 router. In June 2025, Community Fibre announced a wholesale agreement with VodafoneThree that would allow VodafoneThree to offer full-fibre broadband to more than 1.3 million homes over Community Fibre's London network.
Business broadband Vodafone first offered full fibre services for small office and home office (SoHo) businesses in early 2020, partnering with CityFibre and Openreach to deliver gigabit broadband connections to business premises.
Merger with Three ==Radio frequency summary==