It’s the “Need for speed” according to Three, and they’ve announced that their 5G network will arrive in August.
By then there’ll be just London, but things look to be spinning up very quickly, with 25 towns and cities going live by the end of this year.
Using a cloud core network from Nokia, a 5G home broadband service will also be available to start off, with the busiest areas of London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool on the launch-list as the weeks progress.
Three have invested a massive £2bn into their 5G infrastructure and, in this 5G world, Three will have more of the airwaves. This is because the network bagged more than twice as much 5G spectrum as its closest competitor. This means you’ll get 5G over 100MHz spectrum, with peak mobile speeds twice as fast as other networks.
Wah?
Basically Three have 140MHz of 5G spectrum, this includes one contiguous 100MHz block to deliver what’s termed as “full 5G”. Vodafone only have 50MHz. EE and O2 both have 40MHz apiece.
Lots of clever smart antennas will help the network deliver “up to 400% improvements in speed and capacity”. They’ll also be deploying more 4G spectrum by converting existing 3G spectrum.
Dave Dyson, CEO at Three, told us..
It’s clear that consumers and businesses want more and more data. We have the UK’s best network for data and we have led the market on customer usage on both 3G and 4G technologies. We have worked hard over a long period of time to be able to offer the best end to end 5G experience. 5G is a game changer for Three, and of course I am excited that we will be the only operator in the UK who can offer true 5G.
As for pricing and handsets, well – you’ll have to wait until July.
The full list of towns and cities getting 5G are as follows…
