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It was rumoured that Three was going to buy a chunk of that sweet, newly 4G-enabled 1800MHz spectrum off Everything Everywhere, and now it’s been confirmed. Three now has the ability to roll out 4G LTE this year, just like Everything Everywhere.
Three has yet to comment on when it’ll actually launch its 4G network, but now it’s got a chunk of spectrum — two 15MHz bits of the 1800MHz band to be precise — to play with, I should think it’ll be all hands to the pumps to get it up and running as soon as possible.
We already know that Everything Everywhere, having been forced by Ofcom to sell this now-valuable piece of spectrum, doesn’t actually have to clear the airwaves until sometime in October, so Three will have to wait at least for that to happen. Three’s CEO, Dave Dyson, told TechRadar that it the added bands will double the network’s capacity, which is a damn good thing considering Three’s been struggling with oversubscribed areas of late.
In just one day, we’ve gone from having nothing from 4G until early next year at the earliest, to having two networks now capable of rolling out LTE any minute now. Finally, Britain’s got its arse in gear for the future of mobile broadband and I just can’t wait to taste the blazing speeds of superfast, fibre-like speeds without wires. [TechRadar]
Update: It seems Everything Everywhere has pretty much screwed Three’s chances of getting a leg up on the old race to 4G. It’s slapped a condition on the sale meaning that EE won’t clear the airwaves until September. 2013. Talk about authoritarian. Then again, I can’t blame EE — if you could secure a total monopoly on an early 4G network, you’d do everything you could to do make it happen. Looks like we’re stuck with just Orange, T-Mobile or whatever they want to call it.
Image credit: Mobile mast from Shutterstock.
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Anyone know if EE and Three actually have the Hardware in the cell towers for 4G yet, and are just waiting for the go ahead to switch it on? Or have they still got to go around installing it?
the major limitation is likely to be the bandwidth of the backhauls.
I thought EE have been working on Fibre backhaul since the start of the year?
I was told last year that orange was updating all its towers so that when they got the go ahead they would be ready to simple flick a switch. they had planned to be fully ready by mid this year. I would think that they should probably be able to roll it out tomorrow if they got the go ahead.
That actually sounds well planned and thought out.. Something doesn’t seem right!
Great news! Good to hear Three are getting a fair share of 4G, they’re the only network that seems to have their heads screwed on in my opinion as far as quality coverage and fair prices go. This sounds like it will only improve their infrastructure further.
Will Three be changing their name to Four then?
I can imagine Vodafone and O2 chiefs sobbing into their hankies right now…
I suspect it’s more a case of smashing anything breakable that is within their reach and screaming obscenities.
From the comments we’ve seen, their anger seems to stem from “You can’t do this without us, include us…Notice us!”
Though the image of them pretty much throwing a tantrum is making me smile nicely today.
I really hope this forces Voda and O2 to rethink their pricing policies.. main reason i left.. i can get more for less with three and signal has not yet let me down, even in the west country..
I’m quite happy about all of this, it’s nice to see things finally progressing so that we can (hopefully) get dependable mobile Internet now.
Although, for the naming convention, I still think they should have gone with something like Orange T…
I’ll be moving to Orange for this. Vodafone’s signal is appalling in my town compared to my brother on Orange who seem to get infinitely great signal everywhere. EE getting 4G, for me, is the final straw for Vodafone. Unless Orange are annoying idiots and won’t provide a sim-only 4G contract deal (as I buy my phones outright).