EE, the UK’s largest mobile network provider, has announced that it plans to invest a substantial £275m in improving its call quality in 2014. The network’s plan is to set a new benchmark in the voice calls industry.

As part of the spend, more than 5,000 of the older 2G sites are to be upgraded, with capacity also improved on 5,500 3G network sites. The 3G network now carries in excess of two-thirds of EE calls and the company believes that the investment will be a wise one. It is also planning to conduct some trials on 4G voice calls.

Since the beginning of 2012, the network operator has seen its volume of calls increase by 25% and it has already gone through the process of upgrading 6,000 2G sites so that dropped calls could be reduced by up to 50%.

EE’s CEO, Olaf Swantee, said: “While we consistently outperform on the standard UK benchmark for voice call quality and reliability, I don’t believe the benchmark is right. I think the UK mobile industry can do better and we intend to improve the experience for our customers, taking our quality and reliability to levels to those achieved by other operators across Europe.”

Mr Swantee went on to highlight the continuing value of customers being able to make phone calls wherever they were and at whatever time they needed to make them. He noted that despite the news-grabbing digital age, the company had seen more voice calls this year on its network than ever before.

Source: Mobile Today