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Three’s ‘ultra-fast’ 5G internet coming to 25 UK towns and cities by end of 2019
THREE will be launching the UK's "fastest" 5G network in August.
The mobile company is set to compete with Vodafone and EE who have already entered into the UK 5G market.
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Successful London trials for the firm have led it to announce an August launch date for London 5G home broadband.
It will then roll out mobile and home broadband services in 25 towns and cities across the UK by the end of 2019.
If you want to use Three 5G you will need to be in one of these 25 launching areas and have a compatible 5G smartphone or home broadband device.
Three says that it has "more than twice as much 5G spectrum as its closest competitor", which is said to deliver significantly faster speeds for customers.
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Three CEO Dave Dyson said: "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.”
Three says it's the only network provider that can give a 'true' 5G experience because it is apparently the only company that will give UK customers 100MHz of 5G spectrum, which is how the global standards body on 5G technology describes 5G.
The company will be releasing more details and the prices of its 5G handsets and contracts in July.
The cities and towns that the Three 5G mobile network will be initially rolled out in are: London, Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Reading, Rotherham, Sheffield, Slough, Sunderland and Wolverhampton.
Three has said that from the launch date "peak mobile speeds will be at least 2x faster than other mobile network operators and will provide a more reliable connection and experience for customers."
The company's 5G home broadband customers will also get the added benefit of not requiring an engineer to come and set up their broadband as they can just simply plug the box into the wall themselves and start using it.
UK consumers are expected to use 13 times more mobile data in 2025 than today and 5G is intended to cope with this extra demand.
5G internet – what is it?
Here’s what you need to know...
- 5G is the next generation of mobile phone networks
- Just like 4G made your mobile internet faster and more reliable compared to 3G, 5G will do the same again
- Phone networks across the UK are currently scrambling to introduce 5G phone speeds for Brits
- Typical 4G speeds today will typically fall between 50Mbps and 100Mbps
- But early 5G speeds will raise this bar to several hundred megabits-per-second
- And once 5G networks are advanced, you’ll expect to enjoy gigabit-per-second speeds
- However, you’ll need to upgrade your phone plan to a 5G tariff
- Also, not all smartphones support 5G internet – they’ll need to have a 5G-ready modem inside
- We’re only now starting to see 5G smartphones in 2019, so older phones won’t support the new speeds
- Many top phone makers have committed to making (or already launched) 5G-ready smartphones
- These include Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus, LG and Oppo
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In other news, Huawei phones were dropped from EE’s 5G smartphone line-up because ‘lifetime support’ can’t be guaranteed.
The Chinese firm also had its 5G devices put on 'pause' by Vodafone, following mass controversy.
And, Google Play Store had to remove hundreds of popular apps after they were found to contain well-hidden advertising 'plugins', which broke phones.
Are you excited for Three 5G or are you already using it on another network? Let us know in the comments...
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