As the UK enters the next phase of its national 5G Standalone rollout, expectations on the industry continue to rise for speed, resilience, coverage and long-term sustainability. Meeting those expectations is not the work of any single organisation, but the result of sustained delivery across an entire ecosystem. VodafoneThree has continued to raise the bar for its customers, setting an ambitious pace for network integration, performance and long-term scalability following this year’s merger. A merger which included a commitment to roll out 5G Standalone (5G SA) to 99% of the UK population by 2030, extending further to 99.96% by 2034. Turning that ambition into reality requires focus, coordination and delivery at scale site by site, community by community, across the country.
Cornerstone is proud to support that ambition as VodafoneThree’s largest digital infrastructure partner. National connectivity programmes are often discussed in terms of strategy and spectrum. In practice, they are delivered on the ground through land acquisition, planning, design, engineering, construction, field operations and ongoing service maintenance, all working in sync. Cornerstone’s role within this program has been to bring those disciplines together, providing end-to-end delivery capability that allows VodafoneThree to focus on leading their network, while we focus on execution certainty.
As the year draws to a close, the program has reached a significant milestone. Delivery has passed the halfway point for the year, with over 400 sites delivered nationwide, representing 50% of our delivery contribution in this period. The VodafoneThree and Cornerstone teams have worked in close alignment, supported by one of the strongest build and construction supply chains in the industry, coordinating activity across urban rooftops, street works, city infrastructure and rural locations, all while maintaining a strong focus on safety, quality and community engagement.
By the end of 2025, the Cornerstone team and its partners will have turned out 2,500 digital captures and over 1,000 design submissions, and doing all the ground work to enter the new year with 700 sites ready for construction. It’s a real demonstration that national-scale rollout can be achieved, without compromising industry standards, when we work together in a determined and collaborative way across operator teams, digital infrastructure partners, supply-chain specialists, landlords, planners and local authorities, all pulling in the same direction.
“The VodafoneThree merger came with an unprecedented £11bn investment in one of the largest privately funded infrastructure programmes in the UK and a promise to connect all four nations and every community.
I’m incredibly proud of the fantastic progress my team has made this year, supported by trusted partners such as Cornerstone. We’re going further than any other UK mobile network operator by reaching 99% 5G Standalone population coverage by 2030 and 99.96% by 2034, and it’s through collaboration and partnerships that we will deliver our ambitious commitments.”
Andrea Donà, Chief Network Officer, VodafoneThree
“In a sector as complex as telecoms, strong collaboration drives innovation, raises standards and enables delivery at both speed and scale. For Cornerstone, this philosophy extends beyond any single program or customer. As the UK’s largest digital infrastructure estate, we work across the operator community and wider ecosystem every day applying the same discipline, capability and delivery mindset wherever we are trusted to operate. Our role is to enable our customers to move faster and with confidence. Reaching the halfway point is not an end in itself, it’s a marker of progress, and a reflection of the work our teams deliver every day for our customers. Next year is going to bring more demand, more customer expectations, and more pressure on our delivery teams. But the countries digital connectivity is built on an eco-system, through leaders in their field working together, that’s what we will continue to push for.”
Pat Coxen, CEO, Cornerstone
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