O2's chief operating officer, Derek McManus, has claimed that the company's 4G network will be better than EE's, even though it will not work with the Apple iPhone 5.
In an interview with Computing, McManus said that the £550m the firm spent on the 800 megahertz (MHz) spectrum band gave it a "big advantage", because the lower wavelength enables better propagation and, hence, coverage.
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"For every station we build 800MHz, it will cover more people [than the 1,800MHz spectrum that EE has launched its 4G services on]. You get much better coverage from 800MHz than you would from 1,800MHz, so it is a big advantage," he said.
The 800MHz band airwaves were cleared on Wednesday, enabling O2, Vodafone and Three to launch their 4G services in the UK.
O2's McManus remained coy on the company's tariff plans and on any exclusive 4G devices that are in the pipeline. However, he said that further details would be disclosed in the next couple of weeks.
He added that users of the Apple iPhone 5, which can only use 4G on the 1800MHz wavelength, won't be able to use 4G on O2's network. As a result, O2 will not be offering the device to 4G customers.
"Our plans to use 1,800MHz spectrum are quite far in the future. Effectively, we won't be able to use iPhone 5 for 4G on our network and a number of other networks are affected as well.
"We knew that beforehand, so we gave any customer that bought an iPhone 5 an upgrade promise, which means that we will help them when they want to upgrade to a 4G phone," he said.
Similar problems are unlikely to occur when Apple releases its next mobile device.
O2 will aim to keep pace with rival EE, which aims to reach one million 4G subscribers by the end of the year. It has already chalked up 687,000 4G subscribers, but McManus said that such a target is not something that O2 would publicly announce.
4G for businesses
EE had recently announced that it would release shared data plans for businesses, a concept that has fared well in the US with mobile operator Verizon.
McManus said that this was something that the company will announce as its plans materialise but declined to comment further.
He added that 4G was a "brilliant opportunity for businesses", and said that there were already next generation office applications available, while others are being developed.
O2 will continue investing heavily in 2G, 3G and 4G to "utilise the power of the technology to offer rich media content", he said.
On the 4G launch, O2 had said that "next generation office apps and services powered by 4G would enable O2 business customers to be more collaborative, efficient and productive".
When quizzed on the types of next generation applications that are already available, McManus used the example of electronic billboards.
"For example, there are electronic billboards at the side of the street that show live video. With our ability to use technology and what we understand about customers, we can tailor this to a date and to an audience, meaning that you can start to use [billboards] more effectively.
"That's based on streaming rich content on an advertising app, so rather than playing the same advert over and over again, you can tailor it," he said.
