Three said its 5G offering is available in over 400 locations across more than 3,000 sites in the United Kingdom
U.K. operator Three announced that its 5G network currently covers more than 54% of the population.
The operator said its 5G offering is now available in more than 400 locations across more than 3,000 sites nationwide.
David Hennessy, CTO at Three U.K., said in a statement: “We are relentlessly focused on delivering the U.K.’s biggest and fastest 5G network for the U.K. Millions of mobile, business and home broadband customers across more than half the U.K.’s population are able to access our superfast speeds enabling them to live their digital lives to the fullest.”
Three recently announced that it would turn off its 3G network by the end of 2024 in a move that will allow the company to focus investments and spectrum resources on further improving 4G services, while rolling out 5G.
Currently, Three covers 99% of the U.K. outdoor population with its combined 3G and 4G network and carries 28% of mobile data traffic in the country.
“As we continue to roll out our ultrafast connectivity, by not only upgrading our existing 4G sites but building new 5G sites, we’ll be in a position to switch off our use of 3G across our network by the end of 2024,” the executive added.
In its recent Mobile Britain 2022 report, which provides a range of consumer usage statistics, the telco had said that the number of 5G devices accessing its network quadrupled during 2021 to 2.2 million.
Three initially launched 5G services in the UK in August 2019, with the initial offering of a high-speed 5G broadband service in parts of London.
Some of the cities currently covered by Three U.K.’s 5G network include Aberdeen, , Bath, Bedford, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Dundee, Glasgow, Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Luton, Manchester, Nottingham, Plymouth, Reading, Swansea, York and Wigan.
Three, part of the CK Hutchison Holdings, currently has 9.74 million subscribers in the U.K.
In 2019, U.K. telcos had obtained spectrum for the provision of 5G services. Vodafone won 50 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.4GHz band after paying £378 million ($474.7 million). EE won 40 megahertz for which it paid £303 million. Three secured 20 megahertz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £151.3 million, while Telefónica-owned O2 picked up 40 megahertz for £318m.
These frequencies enabled the operators to launch 5G services in 2019, making the U.K. one of the most developed markets in Europe in terms of 5G deployments.
In March 2021, the U.K. completed its latest 5G spectrum auction, raising a total of £1.35 billion.
In this auction, EE secured 2×10 megahertz of paired frequency spectrum in the 700 MHz band at a cost of £280 million; 20 megahertz of supplementary downlink spectrum in the 700 MHz band at a cost of £4 million; and 40 megahertz in the 3.6-3.8 GHz band at a cost of £168 million. Hutchison 3G UK committed to pay £280 million for 2×10 megahertz of paired frequency spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
