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Three UK Commit £2bn to Commercial 5G Broadband Rollout in 2019

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Bowdon:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/11/three-uk-commit-2bn-to-commercial-5g-broadband-rollout-in-2019.html


--- Quote ---Mobile operator Three UK has announced that they’ve committed £2bn to support the start of their commercial roll-out of future 5G mobile and ultrafast “home broadband” technology from the second half of 2019, which will put them in a position to challenge arch rival EE (BT) for an early lead.

Until today EE was the only operator to have firmly committed to start the commercial deployment of 5G services from the end of 2019, although initially this would have to be quite a limited roll-out since much of the necessary radio spectrum and hardware isn’t expected be completely ready until 2020. Similarly most of the early trials have been more focused on fixed wireless broadband ISP connectivity than mobile (Smartphone etc.) services.

However Three UK, which tends to own less 3G and 4G spectrum than their rivals, has long recognised that they may be better positioned to compete in future 5G services. Overall the operator now has to a total of about 144MHz (frequency) across several 5G friendly mobile bands (e.g. 3.4-3.6GHz and a bit of 3.9GHz, 28GHz and 40GHz).

Much of this spectrum comes from their £250m purchase of UK Broadband Ltd. (Relish Wireless) in 2017 and they recently spent £164m to grab a meagre 20MHz slice of the 3.4GHz band in Ofcom’s auction, while most of their rivals scooped up bigger 40MHz and 50MHz slices. In the future we expect they’ll also grab a slice of 700MHz and some other 5G targeted bands.

All of this is important since Three UK claims that their customers gobble “3.5x more data per month than the industry average” and these should be well served by all of the 5G spectrum that the operator now holds. Meanwhile they’re investing £2bn+ on a major upgrade to prepare their network, which has already achieved quite a lot and will also benefit their existing 4G network.
--- End quote ---


--- Quote ---    Dave Dyson, CEO of Three UK, said:

    “We have always led on mobile data and 5G is another game-changer. Also described as wireless fibre, 5G delivers a huge increase in capacity together with ultra-low latency. It opens up new possibilities in home broadband and industrial applications, as well as being able to support the rapid growth in mobile data usage.

    This is a major investment into the UK’s digital infrastructure. UK consumers have an insatiable appetite for data and 5G unlocks significant capability to meet that demand.

    We have been planning our approach to 5G for many years and we are well positioned to lead on this next generation of technology. These investments are the latest in a series of important building blocks to deliver the best end to end data experience for our customers.”
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niemand:
Hopefully this means I won't see virtually zero or zero throughput whenever I'm in a remotely busy area in the future. 0.04 Mbps down, 0.01 Mbps up, with about 1 second latency and 88 ms jitter was what I was blessed with for part of the weekend.

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