Three will launch its 5G mobile services in cities such as London, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry and Nottingham from the end of the month.
Three, owned by Hong Kong’s Hutchison, launched a 5G home broadband product in central London last year.
BT, EE and Vodafone have already launched 5G services in select parts of UK.
Three Chief Executive Officer Dave Dyson said he wanted all elements of the network, including its cutting edge “cloud core”, fully functioning before moving onto mobile.
Three’s entry into the 5G market coincided with the launch of a bigger range of compatible handsets, including the new Samsung Galaxy S20 range unveiled on Tuesday, which would spark wider interest in ultrafast Internet services.
Three will provide peak mobile speeds of up to 2x faster than other telco operators due to its substantial 5G spectrum holding. All of Three’s new and existing customers will have access to 5G with no speed caps and at no extra cost on all contract, SIM only and PAYG mobile plans.
The service will initially be available in 25 cities and towns, building to 80 percent coverage by the end of 2021.
Three said it holds more 5G spectrum than the rest of the industry combined and it was the only UK mobile operator with the 100MHz of 5G spectrum required to meet the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard for a 5G network.
Three has partnered with London fashion design college Central Saint Martins to create a fully immersive 5G catwalk experience later on Friday as part of London Fashion Week.
Three network details
Three earlier revealed that its network technology uses the UK’s leading 5G spectrum portfolio with 100MHz of contiguous 3.4-3.8GHz spectrum which is required to meet the ITU’s standard for 5G in combination with the world’s first fully virtualised cloud core network with Nokia.
Three said the number of 5G masts in London has doubled, covering hundreds of thousands of homes. Three has had 500,000 people across the UK do a coverage check for 5G Home Broadband.
Three UK customers have already started to see the benefits of a £700 million upgrade to its 4G network which will deliver download speed improvements of up to 150 percent for customers.
More than 1,400 of 4G sites have now been upgraded, on target for goal of 1,860 by the end of 2019.
