Three UK to launch its 5G network in August
Three UK will launch its 5G network in the UK in August.
The telco's 5G offering will initially only be available to Londoners, with the telco saying it has plans to expand its 5G mobile and home broadband coverage to 24 other towns and cities across the UK by the end of 2019.
Its initial 5G offering will only consist of home broadband services however, and does not include mobile services.
The 25 towns that will receive 5G mobile and home broadband coverage by the end of the year 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.
See: Huawei and Three UK trial 5G home broadband
As part of the announcement, Three also said it is making networking improvements across London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool as part of its £2bn 5G infrastructure investment such as a new 5G cloud core network provided by Nokia.
Three currently has 144MHz of 5G spectrum -- more than twice as much 5G spectrum as its closest competitor -- with Vodafone owning 50MHz of spectrum, while O2 and BT have 40MHz each.
EE was the first telco in the UK to launch a 5G network, having launched its 5G network in six UK cities on 30 May. The cities that gained access were Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, and Manchester.
Meanwhile, Vodafone announced in May that it will launch its next-generation mobile service in seven towns and cities across the UK in July. The mobile network said Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and London would be its first recipients for 5G coverage.
O2 announced in February that it will start its 5G rollout in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London later this year. The mobile operator also said it would bring 5G to other areas of the UK from 2020, which would coincide with the wider availability of 5G handsets.
Three will announce its 5G handset and pricing details in July.
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